Koulibaly own goal hands Juve victory
Ronaldo on target
MILAN, Sept 1, (RTRS): Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly scored an injury-time own goal to hand Juventus a 4-3 Serie A victory in Turin on Saturday after the visitors had fought back from three goals down.
Goals from Danilo, Gonzalo Higuain and Cristiano Ronaldo gave the Italian champions a 3-0 lead with less than half an hour remaining.
Napoli refused to give up as Kostas Manolas and Hirving Lozano scored within two minutes of each other before Giovanni Di Lorenzo completed a stunning comeback.
But Koulibaly volleyed a free kick into his own net in stoppage time to hand Juve an early advantage in the Serie A title race and leave Napoli coach Carlo Ancelotti ruing a missed opportunity.
“Juventus have so much character and quality, we know that they always step up in the crunch moments of the season,” he told Sky Sport Italia.
“We can compete, but we wasted an opportunity today, above all that hour where we just didn’t play. That is really disappointing.”
Juventus coach Maurizio Sarri was denied a reunion with his former club as he sat in a different section of the stadium to aid his recovery from pneumonia, but he would have been pleased with his team’s performance in the first half.
Substitute Danilo needed just 26 seconds to score after replacing the injured Mattia De Sciglio, finishing off a flowing counter-attack led by Douglas Costa.
Within three minutes Higuain made it 2-0 after he fired into the top corner to mark his third goal in six league games against his former employers, before Sami Khedira curled a shot off the cross bar.
Ancelotti reacted at the break by introducing Mario Rui and debutant Hirving Lozano, but the game appeared to be over as a contest just after the hour mark when Ronaldo opened his account for the season with a well-taken finish.
The match turned on its head in the space of three minutes when Manolas pulled one back with a header before substitute Lozano converted Piotr Zielinski’s cross to reduce the deficit to one goal with more than 20 minutes remaining.