UCL: No Ronaldo, No problem for Juventus
Alvaro Morata bagged a brace as Juventus get their Champions League campaign off the mark with a 2-0 win at Dynamo Kyiv in the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo aka “Mr Champions League”
Andrea Pirlo who took over this season after Maurizio Sarri was sacked after the Italian champions’ last 16 exits to Lyon last season, got his European coaching debut off to a winning start against veteran Dynamo coach Mircea Lucescu who gave the Italian his first Serie A start as a Brescia player 25 years ago.
Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo and US midfielder Weston McKennie both missed the trip to Ukraine after testing positive for coronavirus, with Alex Sandro and Matthijs de Ligt out injured.
Morata’s first goal came after the break, right after Bushchan parried Kulusevski’s effort, allowing the striker to finish off the rebound, in front of a crowd of 15,000 in the Ukrainian capital.
Paulo Dybala came on for Kulusevski 10 minutes after the break for the Argentina forward’s first start this season.
But it was former Chelsea striker Morata who had the final word less than 10 minutes to stoppage time with a powerful header from a Juan Cuadrado cross which gave him a third goal in a week since moving on loan back to Juventus from Atletico Madrid.
Juventus are chasing a third Champions League title after 1985 and 1996, with seven runners-up finishes, including in 2015, with Pirlo playing, and 2017.
Juventus next play Barcelona on October 28 in Turin, with both teams on three points.
