Šeško brace not enough as 10-man Juventus defeat Leipzig

Marco Rose’s team welcomed a famous European name in the form of Juventus to the city of Leipzig tonight, where Die Roten Bullen lead twice through Benjamin Šeško before Juve responded and Conceição bagged the winner in a 3-2 thriller.

Loïs Openda fired an warning shot inside the opening minutes as the Belgian’s effort trickled past the post. At the opposite end, Vlahovic almost bustled his way through. Ex-Stuttgart winger Nico Gonzalez’s evening came to an abrupt end through injury as Francisco Conceição replaced the Juve winger. The Italian club also lost Bremer to another knock minutes prior to the Argentine’s withdrawal.

Both sides enjoyed brief periods of attacking play before Leipzig constructed the lead on the stroke of the half-hour. Nicola Fagioli’s strike deflected but Gulacsi couod parry. With Juve players commited to the attack, Openda fired a long ball forward in the direction of Šeško. The Slovenian striker controlled brilliantly before thumping past Di Gregorio as the ball caught the bar before rattling the net.

Juve roared out of the dressing rooms and looked like they meant business instantly as McKennie found Koopmeiners who could only hit the post. However, the subsequent attack yielded the leveller – Cambiaso crossed to the front post where Vlahovic peeled off Orbán to flick past Gulacsi. But the Juve joy was somewhat shortlived when Di Gregorio was red-carded for denying a goal scoring opportunity for Openda. Worse still, Simons’ subsequent freekick hit the hand of Douglas Luiz in the box. Šeško ruthlessly dispatched the resulting spot-kick. 

Still, dispite the numerical disadvantage, Juve continued to attack. Coming off a weekend brace, Vlahovic would bag his second in the 69th-minute holding off Lukeba to curl past the Hungarian keeper. Šeško was agonisingly denied a hattrick as his shot cannoned off the bar at the other end of the pitch, while an off-sorts Openda couldn’t punish from the rebound. How costly that would be – a Juve break found its way to Conceição who nutmegged Raum and whipped his effort inside the left upright to wheel away in celebration.