DOWNLOAD: Juventus 2-1 AS Monaco (UEFA Champions League – Semi-finals) Highlight Juventus boss Max Allegri showed Manchester City how to beat Monaco comprehensively and reach the Champions League final.
Allegri earns a quarter of Pep’s £20million-a-year Etihad salary and his squad cost about a third of what City’s owners have splashed.
And yet while Guardiola’s team conceded SIX goals in two matches against Leonardo Jardim’s cavalier Monaco, Juve shipped one. And by the time Kylian Mbappe, who else, struck it was all over anyway. First half strikes from Mario Mandjukic and Dani Alves had put Juve two up on the night and four on aggregate.
Lop-sided City flopped against the free-flowing Monaco. But football is played in two parts – attack AND defence. If you can’t defend then au revoir City. But if you can do both as Allegri and Juve showed then it’s arrivederci. To Monaco.
Mandjukic and Alves’ strikes turned this into a procession.
Mbappe slotted through a consolation after 69 minutes as Buffon finally conceded in the Champions League after 690 minutes!
And so Juventus reached their second Champions League final in three years.
They now await their rivals between Real Madrid and Atletico. Sixteen years ago Juve sold Zinedine Zidane to Real for a then world-record £49m. They re-invested part of that in securing a promising goalkeeper for a world record fee that still stands.
As does that keeper, Gigi Buffon, who’s turned out to be simply the best in history. With Real 3-0 up and favourites to also reach the final in Cardiff it would be fitting if boss Zidane were to come up against his Old Lady.
And the tifosi, who have waited for 21 long years since they last won Ol’Big Ears against Ajax in 1996 are desperately hoping this is their time.
They have of course lost two finals since then, in 2003 at Old Trafford to Milan on pens, and two years ago in Berlin against Barcelona.
They have already exacted revenge from Barcelona and Lionel Messi, without conceding a single goal in this year’s quarter-finals.
