Bologna 1-1 Juventus: Milik nets equaliser after penalty miss

Game is over and the final score is Bologna 1-1 Juventus. Here is the match report.

Match Report

Arkadiusz Milik was hero and villain for Juventus, seeing a comical penalty saved and then scoring the equaliser after Riccardo Orsolini’s spot-kick in an eventful draw with Bologna.

The Bianconeri were feeling the pressure after crashing out of the Coppa Italia semi-final midweek and losing three Serie A matches on the bounce. Angel Di Maria and Moise Kean didn’t make the trip, with Dusan Vlahovic only fit for the bench due to an ankle injury. The hosts missed Marko Arnautovic, Roberto Soriano and Nicola Sansone.

Using a new 4-3-3 formation, Federico Chiesa just failed to reach the Filip Kostic pull across at the near post, but there was controversy when Riccardo Orsolini went down in the box under a Danilo tackle. The on-field review monitor was not working, so referee Simone Sozza instead accepted the advice of the VAR and gave the penalty. Orsolini sent Wojciech Szczesny the wrong way to convert.

Arkadiusz Milik forced a tough save out of Lukasz Skorupski with his rocket of a volley on the Kostic cross, then moments later the goalkeeper made an extraordinary double intervention to deny Nicolò Fagioli twice from point-blank range, once with his glove, then his foot.

VAR decided on another penalty, but this time within protocol, because the referee had given a free kick on the outside edge of the box, whereas Jhon Lucumi had brought down Milik inside the area, even taking off his boot. Milik stepped up for his first ever Serie A penalty and it was a shocking attempt, the hop, skip and jump finished with a weak, central effort easily smothered by Skorupski.

Fagioli was going clear on goal until Nikola Moro and Lucumi got back to block him off, then Manuel Locatelli failed to get a shot away when set up by Chiesa.

Musa Barrow had several chances in first half stoppages, first a double opportunity denied by Szczesny save and Danilo block, then moments later seemed to spring the offside trap only to find Szczesny’s one-handed parry one-on-one.

Line-ups

Bologna XI: Skorupski, Soumaoro, G. Kyriakopoulos, S.Posch, Nikola Moro, Jhon Lucumí, Orsolini, Schouten, Dominguez, Lewis Ferguson, Barrow

Subs: De Silvestri, Medel, Francesco Bardi, Charalampos Lykogiannis, Bonifazi, Michel Aebischer, Federico Ravaglia, Joshua Zirkzee, Joaquín Sosa, Andrea Cambiaso, Niklas Pyyhtiä

Juventus XI: Szczesny, Cuadrado, Danilo, Sandro, Kostic, Milik, Rabiot, Locatelli, Chiesa, Nicolò Fagioli, Federico Gatti

Subs: Bonucci, Pinsoglio, Perin, De Sciglio, Rugani, Paredes, Pogba, Dusan Vlahovic, Gleison, Samuel Iling Junior, Fabio Miretti, Matías Soulé