Soccer-Juventus score late winner at Cremonese to continue winning run
Juventus #Juventus
CREMONA, Italy (Reuters) -Arkadiusz Milik scored a stoppage-time free kick to earn Juventus a 1-0 Serie A win at Cremonese on Wednesday in an engrossing game with several chances for both sides.
Juventus earned a free kick one minute into stoppage time, with Milik sending it over the wall and into the bottom-right corner as Cremonese keeper Marco Carnesecchi got a hand to the ball but could not keep it out.
The win, Juventus’s seventh in a row without conceding a goal, left them third in the table on 34 points, while Cremonese are second bottom and still without a league victory this season.
“Cremonese are a team that presses and runs and we made many technical errors. It’s a nice victory, one more step forward,” Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri told DAZN.
“Milik scored a great goal, but it wasn’t easy to win. It’s not easy to face Cremonese.
“I had important players on the bench and they came on and did well, it was five minutes of chaos but then we got the game back. They are a difficult team to handle.”
Cremonese seemed to be in control in the first half, denying Juventus chances inside the box and taking advantage of defensive mistakes.
They had the first chance after two minutes when David Okereke got into the box after a counter-attack, but his shot lacked power and direction.
Cremonese’s Emanuele Valeri headed the ball over Juventus keeper Wojciech Szczesny and into the net after 15 minutes, but the offside flag was up.
Matias Soule went close to giving Juventus the lead after 20 minutes, but keeper Carnesecchi saved his curled shot from outside the box.
Three minutes later, Soule managed to get free outside the penalty area and tried to steer the ball into the bottom-right corner, but Carnesecchi pushed his effort away.
The game heated up as both sides went looking for a winner, with Cremonese hitting the post through Cyriel Dessers’ powerful shot from inside the box after 69 minutes.
(Reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk; additional reporting by Janina Nuno RiosEditing by Toby Davis)