Juventus could only draw 0-0 with Benfica in the second-leg of their Europa League semi-final on Thursday night at the Juventus Stadium.
With the first leg finishing 2-1 in favour of the Portuguese side, the result means the Bianconeri exit the competition and their Portuguese opponents go through to the final on May 14.
The away side started the game on the front foot and had an early penalty claim when the ball struck the arm of Leonardo Bonucci, from a Rodrigo shot, but the referee waved any protests away.
It took a while for Juve to get into the game and it Ferando Llorente played a Kwadwo Asamoah cross into the path of Andrea Pirlo whose excellent strike needed a fingertip save from Jan Oblak to tip it over the bar.
Moments later Juve saw two volleys, one from Arturo Vidal and the other from Carlos Tevez, go flying over the bar, before Stephan Lichtsteiner had a low shot saved by the goalkeeper.
With the half drawing to a close, Antonio Conte’s men continued to turn the screw with both Vidal and Bonucci putting headers inches wide of the target, while Pirlo had another effort go off target.
Then, just before the break Asamoah sent in a cross to the back post with Vidal waiting, his header into the ground bounced up and looked to be on its way in, but Luisao cleared it off the line.
In the second period, the first real chance went to Rodrigo who, unmarked, on the Bianconeri penalty spot could only balloon the ball over the bar. However, after that scare Juve began to assert themselves on the game.
Benfica were dangerous on the counter-attack and Lazar Markovic sent Rodrigo through on goal, but an alert Gianluigi Buffon was able to smother following a poor first touch by the midfielder.
Pirlo then almost broke the deadlock with a free kick, but a great save from
Oblak was needed to keep it out, before Markovic then performed a fantastic late block on a goal bound Vidal shot.
Jorge Jesus’ men then found themselves down to ten men just after the hour mark when Perez collected his second yellow card of the game.
Tevez then sailed through the Benfica defence before firing into the hands of Oblak, who then initiated counter but the away side couldn’t find the killer pass in the final third.
With the clock running down Pirlo sent in a brilliant ball over the top of the defence to an onrushing and unmarked Lichtsteiner, but the Swiss fullback was unable to control the ball and it bounced out for a goal kick.
Seconds later Juve did have the ball in the back of the net through Pablo Osvaldo, but it was ruled out as Paul Pogba was in an offside position when the move started.
Juventus were getting frustrated with perceived play acting from the Benfica side and after one incident Mirko Vucinic and Markovic, who were both not on the pitch, were issued with red cards for an altercation between both benches.
Ezequiel Garay was then taken off after all three substitutions had been made, thus leaving Benfica with nine men for the final moments of the game, but the home side couldn’t find the breakthrough.
