Higuain breaks Torino Harts
Milan, May 7: Gonzalo Higuain fired a last-gasp leveller past England ‘keeper Joe Hart to save Juventus’s blushes in a 11 derby draw with Torino that kept the Serie A giants’ title celebrations on ice Saturday.
Torino looked to be heading for their first derby win over Juve since April 2015 when Adem Ljajic put the visitors ahead minutes after the restart.
But Sinisa Mihajlovic’s visitors lost midfielder Afriyie Acquah in the 57th minute after he was sent off for a second bookable offence.
And despite battling all the way, their hopes of causing an upset days after the club commemorated the 68th anniversary of the Superga air disaster — which killed the entire ‘Grande Torino’ squad when their plane hit the Superga Basilica overlooking the city on May 4 1949 — ended when Higuain fired a low angled strike past Hart in the second minute of added-on time.
Juve’s fourth draw of the campaign leaves the 32-times champions top of the pile with an eightpoint lead on Napoli, who moved up to second earlier with a 3-1 win at home to Cagliari.
It means Juventus will have to wait until at least next week, when they travel to Roma, before even thinking about making plans to celebrate a record sixth consecutive scudetto.
With 24 Serie A goals so far, Argentina striker Higuain, who won the top scorer’s ‘Capocannoniere’ award with a record 36 goals for Napoli, is now one shy of Torino striker Andrea Belotti and Edin Dzeko of Roma.
Earlier, Dries Mertens hit a brace and Lorenzo Insigne added the third as Napoli cruised to past the Sardinians at the San Paolo. Diego Farias scored the consolation goal for Cagliari.