Shaken, Juventus Turin climbed into the last four of the Europa League by containing the draw Thursday in Lisbon on the lawn of Sporting Portugal (1-1) in the quarter-final return.
Adrien Rabiot allowed Juve to take the lead (1-0, 9th) before Sporting recovered thanks to a penalty converted by Marcus Edwards (1-1, 20th). In the semi-finals, the Bianconeri will face Sevilla FC, winner of Manchester United (3-0) at the same time.
After a good start from the Portuguese, the Old Lady proved effective by scoring on her first opportunity.
Federico Chiesa fired a corner that the Sporting defense pushed back on Adrien Rabiot, the Habs hitting in pivot for the opener (1-0, 9th).
But this goal did not dampen the enthusiasm of the Lisbon people who continued to put pressure on the Turin cages.
In the wake of a strike from Francisco Trincão on the post after a tumble from Edwards, Rabiot mowed Manuel Ugarte in the area (18th), the referee of the meeting, François Letexier, pointing to the penalty spot.
Edwards converted it with a low strike in the center of the cages guarded by Wojciech Szczesny who had dived to his left.
Affected by this equalizer, the Turinese fell back against a threatening Sporting.
Ousmane Diomandé also believed to give the advantage to the Lions with a header from a corner which missed the target by a few centimeters (35th).
Returning from the locker room, the Turinese got a huge opportunity when Dusan Vlahovic, yet completely alone a few meters from the goals, missed his header after a service from Angel Di Maria (54th).
With their advantage in the first leg (1-0), thanks to a goal from Federico Gatti, Juve then settled for defending well by repelling Sporting’s incursions into their area, even if they got scared on a shot from Sebastian Coates in the last moments (90th).
Massimiliano Allegri’s men can be doubly happy. In addition to qualifying, their sanction of 15 penalty points in the league for alleged accounting fraud was suspended on Thursday. They thus return to third place in Serie A and do not, for the moment, need to win the C3 in order to qualify for the next Champions League.
