The Italian Juventus crossed with difficulty into the semi-finals of the “Europa League” competition on Thursday, by drawing with its Portuguese host Sporting 1-1 in the second leg of the quarter-finals, by winning the first leg with a clean goal.
Juventus won the first leg at home with a clean goal scored by defender Federico Gatti in the 73rd minute.
And the “old lady” men started the scoring early, specifically in the ninth minute through Adrien Rabiot, who took advantage of the defensive chaos inside the Sporting penalty area after a corner executed by Federico Chiesa, so it was prepared by Brazilian Alex Sandro, so that the Frenchman put it “on the fly” in the net.
But Rabio himself was the reason for the return of the landlords to the match, when he intervened strongly inside the penalty area on the Uruguayan Manuel Ugarte, so that the referee without hesitation awarded a penalty kick.
The match then witnessed an exchange of control and danger, as Juventus missed the opportunity to kill the match in the 54th minute through Serbian Dusan Vlahovic, while Sporting missed the opportunity to resort to two additional halves on more than one occasion.
This qualification for the Italian team comes just hours after the decision of the highest sports court in Italy to suspend the penalty of deducting 15 points from its balance in the league on the background of illegal financial activity, indicating the need to reconsider the case.
With this decision, the Turin giants return to third place in the league standings table with 59 points, but they must wait for a new ruling from the Italian Football Federation court that imposed the original penalty.
On January 20, the Court of Appeal of the Italian Federation for the game decided 15 points from Juventus’ balance for having, according to sports justice, regularly recorded exaggerated capital gains in its accounts when selling some players. However, the Turin-based club announced that it was appealing the decision to the Italian Olympic Committee’s arbitration committee to overturn this penalty.
In a statement, the Italian Olympic Committee’s Sports Insurance Board asked the federation’s court to review the penalties imposed on the club and some key figures, including former Czech vice-chairman Pavel Nedved, who was sanctioned under the original ruling.
However, the long-standing bans imposed on former chairman Andrea Agnelli, former CEO Maurizio Arrivabene and sporting directors Federico Cherubini and Fabio Paracci were maintained.
