Juve Fall to Giantkillers Celta Vigo in 4-0 Rout
VIGO, Spain, March 9 (Reuters) - Nine-man Juventus crashed out of the UEFA Cup in embarrassing fashion on Thursday, losing 4-0 in a fourth round second leg game to a Celta Vigo side with a growing reputation for beating big-name sides.
They went down 4-1 on aggregate to the Spaniards, who last season beat Aston Villa and Liverpool in this competition and had already humiliated Benfica this year. Celta's reward for beating a fourth former European Cup winning side in two seasons is a quarter-final tie against Racing Lens.
Juve had both Antonio Conte and Paolo Montero sent off in a first half in which they lost their 1-0 advantage inside the first minute to a Claude Makelele goal.
They then gifted the Spaniards the lead with a ridiculous own goal from Alessandro Birindelli in the 33rd minute.
Goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar handed Celta their third goal at the start of the second half as he lost the ball outside the area, allowing Benny McCarthy to finish at his leisure. McCarthy took advantage of another piece of fortune on 70 minutes as a Van der Sar save cannoned off a defender and gave the South African striker space to tuck the ball away from close range.
Juventus, three times UEFA Cup winners, suffered the
ignominy of hearing a 30,000 crowd chanting "Ole" as they passed out the game towards the end of the second half.
Celta's opening strike, which clearly upset the plans of a Juventus side hoping to play on the counter-attack, proved to be the pick of the goals in a match otherwise notable for the mistakes of Juventus rather than the flowing football of Celta.
Alexander Mostovoi raced down the left side before jinking into the area and pulling the ball back for Makelele to sweep the ball past a bemused van der Sar.
Edgar Davids attempted to hustle his side back into the game and he almost sent in Alessandro Del Piero for a chance on 11 minutes, the Italian eventually overhitting his cross-shot.
Gustavo Lopez and McCarthy both shot from long range as
Celta continued to press before the sending-off of Conte for his second booking, product of a foul on Juanfran Garcia, put the home side in control.
Celta were gifted their second six minutes later as
Birindelli -- under no pressure from the Celta forwards -- somehow contrived to turn the ball into his own net as he attempted to clear a corner.
And matters for Juventus went from bad to appalling as they were left with just nine men on the field with halftime after Montero saw red for what appeared to be a punch against Valery Karpin.
Any hopes the Italian giants may have had of mounting a
heroic comeback were dashed at the start of the second half following a mistake from the hapless Van der Sar.
The Dutch international keeper, attempting to gather a
through ball intended for McCarthy, had to release the ball as he was about to slide out of the box. McCarthy gratefully slid in the third and added the fourth on 70 minutes after the unfortunate deflection off his defender.
To his credit, the Dutch international keeper kept his
composure to save well from McCarthy and Juanfran Garcia before the night was out to prevent an even more embarrassing scoreline.
