Juventus draw 3-3 with Lech Poznan at Europa League
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Juventus' Paolo De Ceglie (R) fights for the ball with Lech Poznan's Grzegorz Wojtkowiak during their Europa League Group A soccer match at the Olympic stadium in Turin September 16, 2010. [Xinhua/Reuters Photo] |
Artjoms Rudnevs scored a hat trick to help Lech Poznan draw 3-3 away with Juventus in the Europa League on Thursday.
Juventus went into the match with a much changed line-up with Luigi Del Neri deciding to revamp his defense giving Zdenek Grygera, Nicola Legrottaglie and Alex Manninger rare starts.
Juve looked to have a hold on the game in the early stages with Milos Krasic looking particularly threatening down the right side, but his final ball was either not good enough or there was no Juventus forward there to meet the supply from the Serbian.
Lech to their credit were always in the game and looked particularly threatening on the break, and it was a counterattack that proved to be Juve's undoing as Sergei Krivets found Slawomir Peszko with a lovely cross field ball and Felipe Melo was forced to bring the midfielder down in the box resulting in a penalty kick. Rudnevs made no mistake as he sent Manninger the wrong way.
Juventus were now being overrun by the excellent Poznan team with Krivets and Semir Stilic particularly impressive. But to the despair of the home fans a series defensive errors let Rudnevs scissor kick the ball into the net from six yards after Krivets and Stilic had efforts blocked by Manninger.
The season looked like going from bad to worse for the Italian giants as Lech were in control, but they did manage a late goal in the first half from Giorgio Chiellini to give them some sort of hope for the second period. Though goalkeeper Krzysztof Kotorowski should have done a lot better along with Manuel Arboleda who fluffed his clearance.
Juve came out after half-time much more aggressive and Chiellini got his second from another header after some more poor goalkeeping. Juve were level but given the first half showing did not deserve to be.
The home team continued in this vein putting pressure on the Poznan defense at every opportunity and they got their rewards as Del Piero unleashed an unstoppable strike from 30 yards to give his side the lead.
As Juve closed the game off Poznan became increasingly frustrated but could do nothing to thwart the second half dominance of the Bianconeri, though Rudnevs did have a free header late in the match which he should have put away.
But Rudnevs popped up in the final minute to give his team a deserved draw, with a stunning strike from 35 yards out.
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