Massimiliano Allegri suffered his first defeat as Juventus coach as Atletico Madrid battled to a 1-0 victory in Wednesday’s Champions League fixture at the Estadio Vicente Calderón.
Arda Turan struck midway through the second half to give Diego Simeone’s men the three points and a vital win in Group A.
Juventus dominated possession early on and moved the ball around while Atletico, holding a high defensive line, continually harassed the Bianconeri and always looked to win the ball and break up field.
The opening stages offered frantic play but neither side were able to achieve any penetration against well organised defences. Several key battles began developing, especially between Mario Mandzukic and Giorgio Chiellini, and Paul Pogba and Tiago.
This spilled over in the 12th minute when Leonardo Bonucci collected the first booking of the game for an elbow on Mandzukic as they challenged for a high ball.
Juventus, missing the injured Andrea Pirlo, continued to control possession but lacked any attacking spark and failed to create any meaningful chances. They were hindered by a disciplined Atletico defence which mobbed the Juventus strikers in numbers the moment they received the ball.
After one or two half chances the Mandzukic had the game’s first shot at 24 minutes. Arturo Vidal was caught in possession by the terrier like Koke and Arda Turan, who supplied the Croat. However, his shot from range was saved with ease by Gianluigi Buffon.
Juventus had their own effort ten minutes later when a high ball broke kindly for Paul Pogba, but the resulting shot sailed wide.
In a very physical first half and the game was continually interrupted as both sides gave away a plethora of free kicks. However, despite the high energy of the contest, neither side was able to create any significant opportunities to score.
The second half continued in the same vein with Juventus controlling possession but doing little with it. The scrappiness of the first period was also in evidence as the contest was constantly stopped for fouls, destroying any sense of flow to the game.
The referees leniency was ended by Chiellini who received the games second yellow card just before the hour.
Atletico Madrid saw a credible penalty claim waved away after the resulting free kick was fired low across the Juventus box and ricocheted up and off Martín Cáceres’s hand.
That incident seemed to spur the Spanish team on and they began to assert themselves more on the game, putting the Juventus back line under sustained pressure.
It was Atletico who finally broke the deadlock in the 74 minute. Tiago slipped the ball wide to Juanfran who delivered a perfect cross which landed at the feet of Turan, who had stepped past Stephan Lichtsteiner. The Turk’s deft touch guided the ball into the corner of the net, leaving Buffon helpless.
Juventus urgently tried to get back into the game and almost forced Raúl García into scoring an own goal.
Former Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata came on to a hostile reception as Juventus looked for a late equaliser but by this time Atletico had tightened up and managed to see out the result.
