By George Aluo
It was an incredible night of football on Tuesday in Turin as a 10- man Porto that had Nigerian international Sanusi Zaidi held Juventus to a 4-4 draw on aggregate and went ahead to qualify for the quarter final of the money spinning competition on away goals rule.
It was a game in which Juve’s talisman Ronaldo failed to find the back of the net and also failed just like the previous years since he arrived the club to achieve the ultimate goal of getting the Old Ladies to rule Europe.
Porto went into Tuesday night’s game clutching a 2-1 first leg advantage and looked good for victory until the 54th minute when their midfield ace Mehdi Taremi was red carded.
With the one man advantage, Juve dominated play and went into the lead courtesy of Chiesa’s strike. It was Juve all the way thereafter but Porto defended stoutly with old warhorse Pepe doing a yeoman’s job.
Scored stood at 3-3 on aggregate after full time. In the extra time, Sergio Oliviera struck to give Porto the advantage (4-3 on aggregate) only for Juve to level up via Adrien Rabiot’s header.
With scores on aggregate standing at 4-4, Porto qualified for the quarterfinals courtesy of away goals rule.
In the other match of the night, Borussia Dortmund drew 2-2 against Sevilla but went ahead to book a place in the quarter finals. It is recalled that Dortmund won the first leg away in Spain by 3-2.
