Samuel Mbangula boosted Juventus’ possibilities of reaching the final 16 of the Champions League by netting the late winner in Tuesday’s 2-1 success over PSV Eindhoven in Turin.
Winger Mbangula pressured house the decisive purpose eight minutes from the top on the Allianz Stadium to offer Juve a result in take to subsequent week’s second leg of their play-off tie with PSV.
The 21-year-old saved Juve from being stung by Ivan Perisic, who was a fan favorite on the Turin giants’ fiercest rivals Inter Milan and cancelled out Weston McKennie’s cracking first-half opener with a thunderous strike of his personal 10 minutes after half-time.
Juve journey to the Philips Stadion per week on Wednesday with a superb likelihood of establishing a last-16 showdown with Inter, who they face in Turin on Sunday evening.
Both Inter or Arsenal await whichever of those two groups makes it by way of the play-offs.
Juve have been the higher group within the early phases and McKennie’s thumping Thirty fourth-minute strike got here in a primary half through which the hosts have been the higher group however struggled to profit from their supremacy.
Timothy Weah and Nicolas Gonzalez each pressured good stops from PSV goalkeeper Walter Benitez, who additionally saved out Randal Kolo Muani with an instinctive save seconds earlier than McKennie crashed within the opener.
PSV have been harmful nonetheless and each Ismael Saibari and Ryan Flamingo had good probabilities to grab the lead within the sixteenth and nineteenth minutes, the previous sloppily taking pictures extensive a close-range effort after Juve goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio flapped at a Perisic cross.
And it was Perisic who levelled the scores within the 56th minute with a brilliantly strike, the 36-year-old reducing inside new Juve arrival Lloyd Kelly earlier than lashing a low strike in at Di Gregorio’s close to submit.
That strike got here out of nowhere as Juve had been urgent for a second and conceding to a despised former Inter man sucked the life out of the gang and gave PSV a brand new lease of life.
However simply as PSV appeared to be escaping Turin with a draw Mbangula struck together with his first ever purpose in Europe’s elite membership competitors, confidently stroking house on the rebound to offer Juve a result in defend within the Netherlands.
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