{"id":225937,"date":"2020-06-13T09:28:37","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T08:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=225937"},"modified":"2020-06-13T09:32:44","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T08:32:44","slug":"juve-squeeze-past-milan-to-reach-cup-final-as-football-returns-to-italysport-the-guardian-nigeria-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=225937","title":{"rendered":"Juve squeeze past Milan to reach cup final as football returns to ItalySport\u2014The Guardian Nigeria News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Juventus\u2019 Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo (C) outruns AC Milan\u2019s Uruguayan midfielder Diego Laxalt during the Italian Cup (Coppa Italia) semi-final second leg football match Juventus vs AC Milan on June 12, 2020 at the Allianz stadium in Turin, the first to be played in Italy since March 9 and the lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infection, caused by the novel coronavirus. Miguel MEDINA \/ AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Juventus reached the Italian Cup final on Friday after a goalless draw with 10-man AC Milan in the semi-final, second leg in Turin on the day football returned to Italy after three months away.<\/p>\n

Serie A champions Juve advanced on away goals to Wednesday\u2019s final in Rome thanks to February\u2019s 1-1 first-leg draw at the San Siro, despite an under-par display against a Milan side who played 74 minutes with a man less and which featured a missed Cristiano Ronaldo penalty.<\/p>\n

At the capital\u2019s Stadio Olimpico, Maurizio Sarri\u2019s side will face either Napoli or Inter Milan, the last side Juve faced before football entered into its coronavirus-enforced hiatus in March.<\/p>\n

Napoli take on Antonio Conte\u2019s Inter at Naples\u2019 Stadio San Paolo on Saturday with a 1-0 lead from the first leg, in another match set for an eery atmosphere without supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was odd and difficult at the start, playing in an empty stadium after 90 days away,\u201d said Leonardo Bonucci to public broadcaster RAI 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve shaken off a dark moment for the whole world. I hope being back will offer the fans at home a bit of hope and joy. We want to give them something more on Wednesday.\u201d<\/p>\n

A feisty start belied the two teams\u2019 long absence from the pitch, with Juve \u2014 missing the likes of Giorgio Chiellini and Gonzalo Higuain \u2014 roaring out of the blocks and Milan putting in some questionable challenges to try to stop themselves from being overrun.<\/p>\n

Juve should have been ahead in with just 15 minutes on the clock when Andrea Conti clipped the ball in the penalty area with his elbow and conceded a penalty after a VAR check.<\/p>\n

Ronaldo hit the woodwork with the resulting spot-kick, but while that should have been a reprieve for the away side, they found themselves a man down seconds later when Ante Rebic kicked Danilo in the head.<\/p>\n

With Zlatan Ibrahimovic out injured and Samu Castillejo suspended, Stefano Pioli\u2019s side were missing some firepower going forward, but managed to create problems for Juve despite spending most of the match on the back foot.<\/p>\n

Hakan Calhanoglu had Milan\u2019s best chance two minutes after the restart, flashing a free header wide, while Simon Kjaer should have done better with another header 10 minutes from the end.<\/p>\n

However Juve also had their chances, with Milan stopper Gianluigi Donnarumma doing well to keep out Blaise Matuidi\u2019s thumping close range effort on the half-hour mark, and two great efforts from Paulo Dybala and Alex Sandro late in the second half.<\/p>\n

Virus dead tribute<\/strong>
\nThe match was played on the day Italy would have kicked off Euro 2020 in Rome had the tournament not been postponed for a year.<\/p>\n

More than 34,000 people on the peninsula have died because of the coronavirus with the vast majority in northern regions like Piedmont and Lombardy which host Juve and Milan.<\/p>\n

Both teams held a minute\u2019s silence before kick-off for those who lost their lives to the virus before breaking out into applause for healthcare workers, three of whom were stood in the centre circle.<\/p>\n

Juventus players warmed up before the match in T-shirts with the message \u201cNo Racism\u201d, while Milan wore tops on with \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d written on them, in solidarity with global protests over the death of George Floyd.<\/p>\n

The few fans hanging around the Allianz Stadium told AFP that they were happy to see football come back as the country edges towards normality.<\/p>\n

However they were sad that matches had to take place without the passionate support that accompanies most matches in Italy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for a team not to be able to count on the presence of the cheering fans,\u201d said Massimiliano Balduzzi, 47, from Bergamo, one of the country\u2019s worst-hit areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that there should always be cheering at the stadium. Unfortunately, with what happened, we can only keep on waiting and hope that everything will go well.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juventus\u2019 Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo (C) outruns AC Milan\u2019s Uruguayan midfielder Diego Laxalt during the Italian Cup (Coppa Italia) semi-final second leg football match Juventus vs AC Milan on June 12, 2020 at the Allianz stadium in Turin, the first to be played in Italy since March 9 and the lockdown aimed at curbing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":225938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[7444,4680,4665],"class_list":["post-225937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ac-milan","tag-juventus","tag-ronaldo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/225938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}