TURIN, Italy: Juventus finished atop its Champions League group with a 1-0 win over Malmo on Wednesday.
Moise Kean scored in the 18th minute for his first goal in the Champions League for the Bianconeri.
Juventus finished two points above second-place Chelsea, which conceded a late goal in a 3-3 draw at Zenit St. Petersburg. Malmo already knew it would finish bottom of Group H.
Juventus won all but one of its matches in the group stage, losing 4-0 to defending champion Chelsea. The Champions League has offered some relief for the Italian team, which has fallen out of contention domestically.
Massimiliano Allegris squad needed a better result than Chelsea to top the group but were missing a number of players through injury on a cold night in Turin. It had snowed for most of the day but stopped in the afternoon and the pitch was clear.
Allegri handed Koni De Winter his first start. The 19-year-old defender had made his debut as a late substitute in the loss to Chelsea in the previous round.
Mattia Perin made his European debut but the 29-year-old goalkeeper had little to do for most of the match.
Juventus broke the deadlock when Federico Bernardeschi got down the right and whipped in a cross for Kean to head in from close range.
Kean had other chances to seal the result but sent them off target. Although, he did force a brilliant save from Ismael Diawara after the Malmo goalkeeper had poorly dealt with an Adrien Rabiot effort.
___
More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Read all the Latest News here
Comments
0 comment