When I was a freshman in high school, my homeroom teacher\u2019s name was Mr. Bobo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
No, I\u2019m dead serious, that\u2019s actually his surname.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Bobo was \u2014 well, is<\/em>, the man\u2019s still very much alive \u2014 a man of few words, who often watched the world in front of him with an attitude that could best be described as, \u201cI can\u2019t believe this shit.\u201d Often, when witnessing a minor calamity (one\u2019s pen exploding mid-class, or one\u2019s shoelace breaking as you tried to tie it, or leaving something relatively important at home) befall a student he would stoically observe the situation before grunting a single word: \u201cUnlucky.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The way he intoned that word came barreling out of my memory as Juventus\u2019 Champions League league phase tie with Sporting drew to a close. Juventus had played very, very well. They\u2019d outshot their opponents 18-4, and half of those 18 shots were on target. Of Sporting\u2019s shots, only two came after the first 15 minutes of the contest, and only one found the target. Unfortunately, that one \u2014 Sporting\u2019s first of the game \u2014 happened to go into the net after ricocheting off the post. Unlucky.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Juve, meanwhile, were constantly seeing shots or crosses from good positions blocked at the last second, or, in multiple cases, watched Rui Silva become the latest goalkeeper to tap into his inner Gigi Buffon when playing against Juventus. The Portuguese stopper made several reaction saves to point-blank headers, as well as one or two more relatively improbable saves that kept Juve at bay for most of the match. Unlucky<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So it went at the J Stadium on Tuesday evening, as Juventus played one of their better games of the season, but could only come away with a 1-1 draw, leaving them with only three points halfway through the league phase \u2014 the worst Champions League start in team history. Unlucky.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Luciano Spalletti\u2019s home debut saw him continue to employ the experiment that he\u2019d made against Cremonese on Saturday. Bremer, Lloyd Kelly, Juan Cabal, Carlo Pinsoglio, and Arkadiusz Milik were unavailable, but Kenan Yildiz returned after missing the game in Cremona over the weekend to rest a sore knee. Again Spalletti turned to the 3-4-2-1 formation. Michele Di Gregorio anchored the team behind the defensive line of Pierre Kalulu, Federico Gatti, and Teun Koopmeiners. Andrea Cambiaso moved back to the left wing-back position, joined on the right by Weston McKennie. Manuel Locatelli and Kh\u00e9phren Thuram formed the double pivot, while Yildiz and Francisco Concei\u00e7\u00e3o supported Dusan Vlahovic in the attacking phase.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sporting manager Rui Borges had come in on a great run of form. They\u2019d lost only three games all year \u2014 one to Benfica in the Portuguese Super Cup, one to Porto in league play, and one to Napoli on the first day of October, which was their last loss heading into the night. Borges was missing Nuno Santos, Daniel Bragan\u00e7a, and Ivan Fresneda to injury, but had plenty in his arsenal to fill in his 4-2-3-1. Silva started in goal, screened by Georgios Vagiannidis, Gon\u00e7alo In\u00e1cio, Ousmane Diomande, and Maxi Ara\u00fajo. Morten Hjulmund, who had been heavily connected with a move to Juve in the summer, joined Jo\u00e3o Sim\u00f5es in the double pivot, while up front the line of Geovany Quenda, Trinc\u00e3o, and Pote supported Fotis Ioannidis in attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The game\u2019s opening phases were cagey in the extreme, with both teams trading bits of possession as they tried to suss out where each other\u2019s weaknesses were. Juve had the first sight at goal in the ninth minute when McKennie lofted a ball toward Vlahovic at the back post. The striker was alone in the box to line it up, but the delivery had forced him wide and flattened his angle, giving him only one shooting angle for his volley at the near post, which Silva had to parry into the air before he could collect it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was an encouraging start, but Sporting wiped any good feelings off their feet only three minutes later when they opened the scoring out of nowhere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A series of quick passes moved the ball up the right side of the field and then across it, including a nifty back-heel flick by Ioannidis to Trinc\u00e3o, who spread the ball further wide to Ara\u00fajo. McKennie didn\u2019t close the left-back down, and he unleashed a powerful shot across goal that slammed into the side of the back post so hard it sounded as if it it had cracked it, before ricocheting into the net to give Sporting the lead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n AFP via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When Sporting pierced the middle of Juve\u2019s defense and Trinc\u00e3o slammed a shot off the bottom of the crossbar two minutes later, it looked like a calamity might be brewing. But three minutes after that Juve turned the momentum of the game around. Kalulu lofted a beautiful cross into the box that was met perfectly by Vlahovic, who sent a powerful header along toward the far post. Nine times out of 10 a header like that ends up in the goal, but somehow, Silva stuck out a hand and managed to push it to the side. It was an astounding save, and it clearly fired up Vlahovic, who fired another shot 30 seconds later from 22 yards out that skipped along the grass and forced Silva into another one-handed parry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The close calls seemed to have revved the entire team up, and the flow of the match began to shift hard toward Juventus. The attack tended to move well, but often ran into a single unfortunate touch that broke things up. It also didn\u2019t help that German referee Daniel Siebert refused to call a few very obvious fouls that would\u2019ve given Juve some dead-ball opportunities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The pressure finally paid in the 34th minute, when Yildiz held the ball up with a man on his back and laid it off to Thuram, who charged forward and put the ball across for Vlahovic. Juve\u2019s No. 9 finally beat Silva with a quick tap that sped past the Portuguese keeper to tie the score.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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