Juventus miss penalty, held to draw by Lecce in Serie A | OneFootball

By AFP

Juventus did not start 2026 on the right foot: the ‘Vecchia Signora’ missed a penalty and had to settle for a 1-1 draw at home against modest Lecce this Saturday, in the 18th round of Serie A. Juve, coming off three consecutive victories in the Italian Championship, failed to gift their fans with another three points.

They were even dominated by Lecce, who opened the scoring after a defensive error by the Piedmont team in the first-half stoppage time. At the beginning of the second half, Weston McKennie, assisted by the Turk Kenan Yildiz, equalized, scoring a goal that renewed the hopes of the ‘Bianconeri’.

But the Canadian striker Jonathan David, formerly of Lille, who is going through a bad phase and is the target of criticism from the fans, missed a penalty at 66 minutes of the game. Lecce's goalkeeper, Wladimiro Falcone, secured his team's draw with a spectacular save from David's shot at 89 minutes, before Yildiz hit the post in stoppage time.

However, their coach, Luciano Spalletti, did not criticize the Canadian player: “He is one of our penalty takers, he takes them very well, showed personality, did what he had to do.” The former Italian national team coach, who arrived in Turin in November, lamented “the absence of [his] players at the near post in situations that could have been favorable” to Juventus.

Photo: MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP

Table Situation

Juventus is in fifth place on the table with 33 points, five behind Milan (with one game less), who beat Cagliari 1-0 on Friday, in the opening match of the 18th round. Inter Milan, in second place with 36 points and two games less than Juve, hosts Bologna on Sunday, while the current champion Napoli (3rd, 34 points) visits Lazio.

Atalanta vs Roma

In another important match of the round, Atalanta defeated Roma 1-0 at home. The goal was scored by Giorgio Scalvini in the first half. With the result, Roma lost the chance to overtake Juventus on the table, and now both teams have 33 points. Atalanta is in eighth place with 25 points.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.