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Mbangula gives Juve advantage over PSV in Champions League play-offs / Photo: © AFP
Mbangula gives Juve advantage over PSV in Champions League play-offs
Samuel Mbangula boosted Juventus' chances of reaching the last 16 of the Champions League by netting the late winner in Tuesday's 2-1 success over PSV Eindhoven in Turin.
Winger Mbangula forced home the decisive goal eight minutes from the end at the Allianz Stadium to give Juve a lead to take to next week's second leg of their play-off tie with PSV.
The 21-year-old saved Juve from being stung by Ivan Perisic, who was a fan favourite at the Turin giants' fiercest rivals Inter Milan and cancelled out Weston McKennie's cracking first-half opener with a thunderous strike of his own 10 minutes after half-time.
Juve travel to the Philips Stadion a week on Wednesday with a good chance of setting up a last-16 showdown with Inter, who they face in Turin on Sunday night.
Either Inter or Arsenal await whichever of these two teams makes it through the play-offs.
Juve were the better team in the early stages and McKennie's thumping 34th-minute strike came in a first half in which the hosts were the better team but struggled to make the most of their supremacy.
Timothy Weah and Nicolas Gonzalez both forced good stops from PSV goalkeeper Walter Benitez, who also kept out Randal Kolo Muani with an instinctive save seconds before McKennie crashed in the opener.
PSV were dangerous however and both Ismael Saibari and Ryan Flamingo had good chances to snatch the lead in the 16th and 19th minutes, the former sloppily shooting wide a close-range effort after Juve goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio flapped at a Perisic cross.
And it was Perisic who levelled the scores in the 56th minute with a brilliantly strike, the 36-year-old cutting inside new Juve arrival Lloyd Kelly before lashing a low strike in at Di Gregorio's near post.
That strike came out of nowhere as Juve had been pressing for a second and conceding to a despised former Inter man sucked the life out of the crowd and gave PSV a new lease of life.
But just as PSV looked to be escaping Turin with a draw Mbangula struck with his first ever goal in Europe's elite club competition, confidently stroking home on the rebound to give Juve a lead to defend in the Netherlands.
L. Brown--BTZ
