A COUPLE OF goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and a dramatic late VAR call gave Juventus a 2-1 win over Sampdoria that extends their lead at the top of Serie A.
Having rescued their unbeaten start to the league season with the equaliser against Atalanta last time out, Ronaldo struck in each half to secure a 17th win in 19 games heading into the mid-season break.
Sampdoria, who had levelled through Fabio Quagliarella’s penalty and had an injury-time Riccardo Saponara strike disallowed by VAR, have now lost their last four away league games against Juve for the first time since 1968.
The only negative for Juve was the loss of goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny to an apparent injury in the warm-up.
Samp’s resistance lasted less than two minutes, Ronaldo gathering Paulo Dybala’s pass, cutting inside and firing right-footed through the grasp of Emil Audero.
| GOAAAL! |
— Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) December 29, 2018
What a start for Juve 🔥
A wonderful ball from Paulo Dybala and then Cristiano Ronaldo with the finish 👏 pic.twitter.com/i6SUcaF6pn
Samp levelled after 32 minutes through Quagliarella’s spot-kick after a VAR review led to Emre Can being penalised for the ball striking his elbow.
Audero denied Ronaldo with a flying save as Juve stepped up the pressure after the break, but he could do nothing to stop the Portugal star from burying a penalty past him 65 minutes in, after Alex Ferrari was deemed to have handled in the box.
Saponara thought he had struck a sublime equaliser in injury time after a mistake by Mattia Perin, but a VAR check showed he was offside in the build-up.
| ❌ |
— Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) December 29, 2018
The disallowed goal from Saponara for Sampdoria was top bins 😳 pic.twitter.com/kd58Zf8Y3D
| 😱 |
— Eleven Sports (@ElevenSports_UK) December 29, 2018
Sampdoria's stunning equaliser has been disallowed...
The final whistle has Juventus fans relieved and Sampdoria fans gutted 💔 pic.twitter.com/t0Wc3b6oEZ
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