TURIN: Juventus’ hopes of wining the Italian Serie A title ended after a 0-0 draw at city rivals Torino on Saturday.
Juventus are third in the standings on 63 points from 32 games with six matches left to play, 19 behind leaders Inter Milan.
Record 36-times Italian champions Juve won the title nine times in a row from 2012-2020 but have not lifted the trophy since.
“It’s a point... we accept it,” Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri told a news conference. “There’s always the disappointment of not having scored three, but if we hadn’t lost (more) games we would have been in a better place. Today we take it, we have to improve things.”
They remained winless on the road since late January, when they beat Lecce 3-0, and have gone five away games in a row without victory in a single domestic season for the first time since 2010.
Dusan Vlahovic wasted two chances to give Juve the lead in the first half, hitting the post from point blank range and putting Torino keeper Vanja Milinkovic-Savic to work with a shot into the far corner.
The game turned into a more lively derby when Torino forward Duvan Zapata thought he had broken the deadlock for the hosts one minute after the interval, but his effort was ruled out for a foul in the buildup.
Torino continued to press as the second half wore on and Juventus keeper Wojciech Szczesny was forced to dive to save an Antonio Sanabria header.
Juventus ended their longest ongoing streak of scoring away goals against a single opponent having netted in each of their previous 15 games at Torino in Serie A.
Ninth-placed Torino, on 45 points, are now the team with the most Serie A clean sheets at home (11) this season.
Meanwhile, fourth-place Bologna were also held to a goalless stalemate against Monza on an uneventful evening in Italy’s top flight.
Bologna dropping points for the second straight week left third-placed Juve four points ahead of Bologna.
Bologna are trying for a first-ever spot in the Champions League, although they played one round in the old European Cup in 1964, the same year that they most recently won Serie A.
Earlier, Nicola Sansone’s late strike gave Lecce a 1-0 win over fellow strugglers Empoli.
Sansone rolled the decisive goal into an empty net with a minute remaining in southern Italy, moving Lecce up to 13th and six points above the drop zone.
Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2024
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