Turin: Juventus crashed out of the Champions League round of 16 on away goals for the second successive year as the Bianconeri were eliminated by 10-man Porto on Wednesday despite winning the second leg 3-2.
Sérgio Oliveira scored in extra time to send Porto into the next round. Porto played most of the second leg at a numerical disadvantage after Mehdi Taremi’s was sent off but advanced on away goals after the matchup ended 4-4 on aggregate.
“There’s great disappointment and sadness, I’m pretty much speechless,” Federico Chiesa said. “We managed to get back into the match and we deserved to go through. Instead, we’re here talking about something else and I really don’t know what to say.
“We had all the cards in our hand to go through, just we didn’t show it. We only performed in the second half today and we almost did it … the disappointment is so great. It’s all pretty much meaningless, even my two goals or my performance, because we haven’t got anything out of it.”
Oliveira netted Porto’s first goal from the penalty spot on 19 minutes. But it was Chiesa who scored twice in the second half on 49 and 63 minutes to level the tie for Juventus and forced extra time.
Porto appeared to have won the tie before Adrien Rabiot reduced the deficit to set up a tense finale. Juventus almost sealed the match in stoppage time as Álvaro Morata had a goal disallowed for offside before Cuadrado fired an effort off the bar.
The Bianconeri were made to regret those wasted opportunities as just five minutes from the end of extra time, Weston McKennie fouled Oliveira, who fired a free-kick under the wall and into the bottom left corner on 115 minutes.
“These games are marked in the history of the club,” Porto coach Sérgio Conceição said. “I have a group of brave players who interpreted what we wanted in the best way, against a great team with players of a very high level. After Taremi’s sending off, we showed the Porto DNA. We never stopped believing — this is the true DNA of Porto.”
