As Wednesday dawned in Turin, Juventus was faced with this daunting statistic: of the 49 teams that had ever lost the first leg of a Champions League knockout tie by three goals, only four had ever advanced.
Juve’s fans knew just how hard it was. The Bianconeri had been one of those 49 teams in 2018, when they went into the second leg of a quarterfinal tie against Real Madrid down 3-o. They became the first team to ever take a 3-0 lead against Real at the Bernabeu, but a poor coaching decision by
Massimiliano Allegri and some truly awful officiating saw their comeback attempt dashed at the death.
Juve would have to pull off a similar feat on Wednesday if they wanted to overcome Galatasaray. After melting down in the second half of the first leg eight days before in a 5-2 loss, they had forced themselves to climb a mountain. That mountain was made all the more dangerous within the first four minutes of the second half, when Portuguese referee João Pedro Pinheiro sent Lloyd Kelly off for something that shouldn’t have even been a yellow card. But Juve continued to push, and with eight minutes left had hauled themselves all the way back to level.
But having to play a man down for what turned out to be more than an hour after extra time finally took its toll on Juve’s players. After an early chance to go ahead was wasted, they simply couldn’t keep up the same energy. When Victor Osimhen slid the ball under Mattia Perin’s legs in stoppage time of the first half of extra time (say that three times fast), it was a gut punch. When Baris Yilmaz slipped behind the defense to end the contest with a minute left, it was all over. It had been a 3-2 win on the night — Juve’s first in six games — but Galatasaray walked out with a 7-5 aggregate victory.
And yet, as the game ended, the same fans who had jeered their club off the pitch this past Saturday against Como rose as one and applauded their team, conscious of the incredible effort that they showed, realizing how remarkable it had been for them to even get that close.
Luciano Spalletti had to decide how to man the left-back spot given both his natural players for the position, Andrea Cambiaso and Juan Cabal, were suspended for yellow card accumulation and last week’s red, respectively. Dusan Vlahovic and Emil Holm were injured, and Gleison Bremer was only fit for the bench. Spalletti decided to use the same 4-3-3 formation he’d used the week before, with some minor variations to cover for his errant full-backs. Mattia Perin started in goal, giving the struggling Michele Di Gregorio a mental health day. The surprising choice for left-back was none other than the ever-versatile Weston McKennie, who joined Pierre Kalulu, Federico Gatti, and Kelly in the back line. Khéphren Thuram, Manuel Locatelli, and Teun Koopmeiners were the midfield three, while Francisco Concieção and Kenan Yildiz flanked Jonathan David in the attacking trident.
Galatasaray manager Okan Buruk was actually getting more of his top pieces back for the second leg. He made only one change to the 4-2-3-1 that had won last week. Ugurkan Çakir started in goal, shielded by Roland Sallai, Davinson Sánchez, Abdüklkerim Bardakci, and Ismail Jakobs. Former Juventus midfielder Mario Lemina returned from a suspension and joined Lucas Torreira in the double pivot. Yilmaz, Gabriel Sara, and Noa Lang were grouped behind Osimhen at the No. 9 spot.
Scoring early would be paramount if Juve were to do the improbable, and they had two close calls in the first 10 minutes, but both Gatti and Koopmeiners couldn’t get on top of their headers and fired over instead. Perin had to be quick to stop an Osimhen effort in the 11th, but it was clear from quite early on that the visitors expected to see out their big lead through the dark arts — namely wasting time by reacting to each collision, minor or major, as if they’d been brought down by a sniper in the upper bowl. Annoying as this delaying tactic was, it also handed the initiative to Juve, who were the only team that had come in expecting to play football straight-up.
As such, they limited Gala to a handful of attempts, none of them very meaningful. Juve, meanwhile, pressed hard in midfield and attacked, determined to pick up a goal before halftime to take that little bit of the edge off of the tie. Locatelli loaded up from range and forced Çakir into a parry, and Conceição collected the defensive header off the ensuing corner and unleashing a curler that went inches wide of the far post.
In the 25th minute, Kelly was booked for coming in late on Sara, although the contact was heavy enough that the call was somewhat marginal. Five minutes later, Yildiz was spectacularly denied the opener when Çakir somehow managed to change directions and get an arm on his shot after it took a wicked deflection off of Sánchez and arrowed toward the bottom corner.
But 10 minutes before the half, Juve finally broke through. Koopmeiners picked Sánchez’s pocket upfield and sent the ball in to David, who squared to Thuram. Thuram was getting ready to hit the ball first time when Torreira came sliding in and took the Frenchman out from behind. Torreira somehow managed to avoid a booking for his challenge, but Perheira pointed to the spot as soon as it was clear Conceição wasn’t going to score as he first-timed the loose ball toward the goal.
Up stepped Manuel Locatelli. In another example of how he’s been growing into the captain’s armband recently, Juve’s No. 5 was absolute nails, sending Çakir the wrong way as he coolly slotted his penalty to his right.
The goal set the J Stadium — which had been hopeful but wary since the start of the match — into a frenzy. Juve could only manage two more shots in th efirst half. The first was a flick into the keeper’s arms by Gatti, the second a seed of a shot by Thuram that flew wide after David made a horrific first touch in the box. There was also some amusement when Carlo Pinsoglio was booked on the bench for dissent, making him perhaps the only person ever to receive a booking in the competition before making his debut as a player.
But before the game could really start in the second period it changed dramatically.
Kelly had gone up for a header with Yilmaz, and as he landed caught Yilmaz in the back of the calf with his spikes. Apart from defying gravity, there was little Kelly could’ve done differently, but Pinheiro reached for his yellow card a second time. To add insult to injury, VAR official Tomasz Kwitcowski called Pinheiro to the pitchside monitor, after which the Portuguese official decided to dig deeper into the hole he’d already dug for himself and upgraded it to a srtaight red, much to Kelly’s annoyance.
But Galatasaray’s plan to make the game unplayable was still hurting them. They continued to milk every incident for all it was worth, and despite being a man down Juve still played with the initiative at their backs. In the 55th minute, Yildiz was again unlucky when Sánchez blocked his shot — to safety this time — and Gatti headed another cross over, while Locatelli fired wide from a good spot on the right.
Conceição wasted a great chance when he could only summon a weak shot at the near post, and then Osimhen looked to seal the tie for Gala, but Perin stopped two of his shots in two minutes, then Gatti made an unreal block on Sara to keep Juve in front on the night after a three-on-two break.
Despite the close calls, Gala were still managing the game extremely poorly, and with 20 minutes left lost their last margin for error when Çakir only got fingertips to a low cross from Kalulu, which fell perfectly for Gatti, who had stayed up after a corner. The place erupted again as Gatti ran the ball to the center circle.
Gala were in dire straits now, and Buruk tried to calm things down by introducing the experience and leadership of Ilkay Gündogan. But it did little to help, and Juve continued to swarm forward on the press. In the 77th minute Thuram made a fantastic run into the left channel but decided to chip Kopel while one-on-one and overhit it, lifting the ball over the bar. Yildiz then had to stretch for a cross by Jérémie Boga at the back post but only tapped it onto the post.
But destiny would come calling for one Weston McKennie. When Edon Zhegrova put a free kick to the back post, Koopmeiners headed it back across, where the Texan, who had played all over the park since the red card to Kelly, snuck between Lemina and Torreira and headed it in from two yards away.
Juve still had nine minutes to try to put the bed before having to endure extra time, and Yildiz made a fantastic dribble in stoppages only to drag his shot wide. It would be 30 extra minutes to decide who went to the round of 16.
It really could’ve been Juve. Six minutes into the extra period, Boga found McKennie in space in the penalty area. He was in good position to shoot, but chose to be unselfish and pushed it further to the right to Zhegrova. The Kosovo international still had a fantastic shooting lane, and could’ve put Juve on top, but somehow managed to crack the ball wide, and by a good margin.
That was Juve’s high water mark.
After Eren Elmali barely missed putting Gala back in front on aggregate, it was old enemy Osimhen who finally broke the Bianconeri. Gatti, who had been a rock in the back as Juve had to push forward, was slightly out of position when Yilmaz found the Nigeria international in the left channel, and his effort to intercept the pass just missed. Osimhen fired the ball low through Perin’s legs to deflate the J Stadium and put the Turkish giants back in front.
Juve had one last chance to push it into penalties when Zhegrova tried to redeem his prior miss with a vicious shot from a tight angle that Çakir managed to keep out with one hand, and Filip Kostic slipped as he tried to turn the rebound on goal.
By this point, Juve were truly gassed, and it showed. They were going as hard as they could, but Gala was able to keep the ball for the first time all night. It culminated when Wilfried Singo, back in Turin for the first time since he left Torino three years ago, slipped the ball through the middle of the field where both Yilmaz and Osimhen chased it down. It was the winger who won the race, slipping it past Perin and sealing the game.
The crowd rose to applaud the effort of the men who played like lions in black and white over the last few minutes. There were so many points where things could’ve made the night different—Zhegrova’s miss being the biggest—but ultimately, the failure of the second half in Istanbul proved decisive, and those last two goals that came off brainless errors ended up proving decisive on a night that came so close to history.
