Juventus player ratings vs Lokomotiv Moscow: Douglas Costa sends Juve to knockout stages
By John Vaccaro
Juventus once again found a way to win a match despite playing horribly for the majority of the match.
In fact, this might be the first time all year that Juventus deserved to outright lose a match that they ended up winning. Juventus was better than Lokomotiv for the first 3 minutes and the last 2 minutes. You could argue that Lokomotiv was better for the 90 in between.
That first 3 minutes was disastrous for Lokomotiv. They surrendered a free kick on the left wing that was seemingly outside of the range that anybody should actually be considering shooting from. That didn’t stop Ronaldo from trying, though. His shot should have been routinely saved by Lokomotiv’s keeper, but it slipped through his hands and behind him, where Aaron Ramsey unnecessarily guided it over the goal line. Lokomotiv would answer quickly.
Just 9 minutes later, they sent in a cross from their left wing that was headed by Aleksey Miranchuk. His header hit the post and bounced right back into the six yard box. Miranchuk followed his miss and blasted it into the net as Szczesny was trying to recover from his dive at the first shot. The match would head to halftime tied at 1.
For most of the second half, it looked like the match would either finish 1-1 or Lokomotiv would claim a massive home win. They even seemed to have their goal in the 77th minute when Lokomotiv forced Szczesny to come out of his net to make a save on a counter attack. His save ricocheted to the opposite side of the box, where Joao Mario shot it from the top of the box. Szczesny wasn’t able to scramble back to his goal in time, but Leonardo Bonucci was there to save the day. He cleared Mario’s shot off of the goal line and kept the match even.
16 minutes later, when this match seemed destined for a draw, Douglas Costa delivered for Juve. He made a great run past a Lokomotiv defender and then passed the ball to Gonzalo Higuain in the box. Higuain back heel flicked it back to Costa, who took the ball past another defender and slid a shot through the Lokomotiv keeper’s legs. That goal gave Juve a 2-1 win and officially qualified them for the Champions League knockout stages.
GK: Wojciech Szczesny 7/10
Wojciech Szczesny was once again unable to secure consecutive clean sheets, but you could make the argument that he was unlucky not to keep a clean sheet in the match. On Lokomotiv’s goal, Szczesny dove to make a save, but the initial header from Aleksey Miranchuk ended up hitting the post. If the header had been on target, Szczesny would have been positioned to make the save and likely would have been able to push the ball out-of-bounds. Instead, it kicked off the post and bounced right back into the six yard box, where Miranchuk was able to score easily. Szczesny handled everything else that was thrown at him well in the match and this should just be the start of a busy month for him with Milan, Atalanta, Atletico Madrid, and Lazio all on the schedule in the next month.