Juventus are removed from the playoffs – Newspaper Kommersant No. 189 (7390) of 10/12/2022

On the first day of the fourth round of the Champions League group stage, its main loser seems to have been determined. They became Juventus, which, after losing away to the Israeli Maccabi – 0: 2 – has meager chances to break into the play-offs from group H. Another surprise of the evening was a draw – 0: 0 – in the match of the modest Copenhagen with “Manchester city”. However, the first misfire in the tournament will not prevent the Manchester club from getting to the cup stage. His position in Group G is extremely solid.

The Juventus crisis has become a hot topic for quite a long time, and the match in Israel only made it more acute. Turintsy perform badly in the Italian championship and so far are not at all like a team that is ready to fight in it, not only for gold, but just for medals. And it seems that an international catastrophe is about to be added to the internal catastrophe.

Juventus, which in the first round of the Champions League group stage lost to both of its main competitors in the quartet – both PSG and Benfica, in Haifa needed a bloody nose to win a second consecutive – after home a week ago – victory over group outsider Maccabi . Instead of victory, another Turin embarrassment came out. In the first half, Juventus conceded two goals from Omer Atzili, lost the injured Angel Di Maria, and in the second, persistently, but, as a rule, rather stupidly attacked, achieving nothing.

After this defeat, he had three points left. And PSG with Benfica, two rounds before the end of the group stage at the time of the final whistle in Israel, had seven of them. Late in the evening Moscow time they played each other in Paris. However, regardless of the result of the French match, it will be incredibly difficult for Juventus to jump to at least the second line.

Another formal sensation of the evening took place in Denmark. The calendar of the current Champions League has a lot of matches with a much cooler “sign” than the one in Copenhagen. But those who decided to watch him were hardly disappointed. In any case, you rarely see a game so full of various curious and unexpected events.

Before its start, all British media resources – the BBC, The Guardian – of course, discussed the changes that have occurred in the starting lineup of Manchester City compared to the meeting of the English championship with Southampton that they played last weekend. There were five players in the reserve. But all the conversations revolved, of course, exclusively around one of them. Manchester coach Pep Guardiola did not include Erling Haaland in the base, a young man who scored two dozen goals in a damn dozen matches this season, that is, he shows such performance that neither Pele, nor Gerd Muller, nor Diego Maradona, nor Lionel Messi could ever dream of. with Cristiano Ronaldo. The version that the Norwegian for some reason fell out of favor with Guardiola, seriously, of course, no one considered. The main one boiled down to the fact that Copenhagen, destroyed in the last round – 5:0 – “Copenhagen”, the mentor of the champions of England no longer considers it a dangerous opponent, which means that the phenomenon can be given a rest before the battle in the national championship against Liverpool: we’ll manage without it.

But it was not possible to cope, although it cannot be said that Copenhagen jumped above their heads. He played timidly, burrowing into the trenches, but miraculously, trouble bypassed him.

The Manchester team were confident that they had taken the lead when, after a discount from Julián Alvarez, Rodri, being three dozen meters from the gate, decided that he could shoot at them without a run. He was absolutely right, because the ball hit the nine. But then VAR suddenly turned on, and it was clear that the guests did not understand why: after all, it seemed to be normal, well, there was nothing to complain about. Meanwhile, the video replay saw how, even before getting to Alvarez, the ball slid lightly over the hand of Riyad Mahrez. And the referee Artur Dias, after thinking, canceled the goal.

But shortly after the Manchester corner, VAR started working for the second time – and again, as it seemed, for no apparent reason. But now its inclusion turned out to be successful for the guests. It turned out that the ball had already landed in the hand of Copenhagen player Nikolai Boilesen, which means that a penalty had to be taken. The penalty kick was played by Riyad Mahrez, and he performed really well – strong, into the corner. But the hosts also bounced back in this episode thanks to their goalkeeper Kamil Grabara, who managed to jump to the “dead”-looking ball.

And VAR did not want to calm down. Her third “appearance” happened after the Copenhagen counterattack, which Hakon-Arnar Haraldsson was preparing to complete. Forward in the penalty area brought down by Sergio Gomez. Arthur Dias, after watching the replay, did not appoint a penalty, limiting himself to the standard, but sent off Gomez, believing that he had thwarted a potentially scoring attack. And Manchester City, who came to Denmark for an easy victory, remained in the minority.

The second half was held under the whistle of the public. “Manchester City” did not really want to climb forward, preferring to keep the ball and a draw, and “Copenhagen” could not oppose something to this desire. So the match ended in a goalless draw, which, of course, will not prevent Manchester from confidently reaching the playoffs. Before this round, only Borussia Dortmund was located not far from him – three points behind. And Sevilla (she played away with the German club late in the evening Moscow time), like Copenhagen, had only one point in the asset.

Alexey Dospekhov