Benevento put a huge dent in Juventus’ title aspirations with a shock 1-0 win at the Allianz Stadium.
Despite looking disjointed, Juve looked likely to score towards the end of the first half. The game carried on in the same vein after the restart, but a brave Benevento side took the lead through Adolfo Gaich after 70 minutes.
Juventus threw everything at Pippo Inzaghi’s side but couldn’t find a breakthrough.
Juve were awarded a penalty just after the half-hour mark for a handball, but after viewing the incident again the referee overturned his decision. The replays showed that Daam Foulon couldn’t have done much more to avoid handling the ball.
A few minutes later Cristiano Ronaldo thought he had put Juve ahead, only for it to be correctly ruled out for offside. It seemed an opening goal for the Bianconeri was imminent. Up until the final 10 minutes of the half, Benevento looked confident and created a couple of decent openings for themselves.
Juve were applying relentless pressure to Benevento in the second half, but suddenly with 20 minutes to go Gaich put his side ahead. Arthur played a terrible pass across his box, and the Argentinian collected the loose ball and expertly fired it into the bottom corner.
Lorenzo Montipo made a series of great saves to deny a desperate-looking Juventus side. Both Ronaldo and Danilo missed wonderful chances to equalise, but Benevento put in a heroic defensive performance.
This defeat means Juve stay in third place, 10 points behind Inter and with very little chance of retaining the Scudetto.
