Juventus Europa League campaign started with a shock result at home to Polish side Lech Poznan, drawing 3-3 in their opening Group A match after all Europa League betting pundits predicted an easy win.
The Italian giants came from 2-0 down to lead the match 3-2 going into injury time, only for Lech to grab an equaliser right at the death. The star of the show was undoubtedly Lech’s Latvian striker Artjoms Rudnevs. The 22 year old scored a dream hat-trick at the Stadio Olimpico, guaranteed his side started their Europa campaign with a positive draw.
After Rudnev had put Lech 2-0 ahead after half an hour, Juventus left back Gieorgio Chellini grabbed a goal back in first half injury time. The goal made up for Chellini’s mistake that had let Rudnev in to score his second goal.
Five minutes after the break the left back scored his second of the match to level the scores. Juventus took the lead on 68 minutes through an Alessandro Del Piero wonder strike. Del Piero’s left foot shot whistled into the top corner to give the Italians the advantage with 20 minutes left. Chellini very nearly completed his hat-trick later, when he narrowly failed to connect with a Del Piero free-kick.
Lech looked to be down and out with the game going into the second minute of added time only for Rudnev to silence the stadium with a cracking strike past former Arsenal keeper Alex Manninger to give Lech a share of the points.
Juventus will need to improve if they are going to live up to their early Europa League Odds tag as one of the favourites to win the trophy.
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