Toon lose in Turin, while Lippi Praises the Effort

By Peter Donnelly
October 2 2002

Newcastle United were cruely beaten 2-0 by Juventus in Turin, on Tuesday night. However, Juve's manager, Marcelo Lippi, credited Newcastle after the game.

The Magpies were always in the game and always competetive. We frustrated Juventus as times, with our changed 3-5-2 formation for once having a good effect. Nedved barely got a sniff because of Andy Griffin's excellent marking job on him. And througout the match it was always even.

But, Juve's firt goal was a big blow and an undeserved one when Del Piero took a dive to earn a free-kick right on the edge of the box. Our man's reaction, Nikos Dabizas, who was marking him at the time, said it all as the Greek actually thought it was a pen and started rolling around in devestation. When the free-kick was took you couldnt argue with the quality of the strike, but he still cheated to earn himself the chance.

Shearer had a fine header dissallowed because Dyer as offside. It was a tricky decision because Dyer was in th box but the ref, after the game, confessed to getting it wrong.

Del Piero then sunk Newcastle with a second with a clean but deflected strike from inside the bx.

Laurent Robert had a good chance to get a consolation when a good Dyer run and a Shearer miss presented him with a strike on goal which was beat out by the keeper.

Then on 90+mins Dyer broke away again and had a good shot on goal which the keeper saved again though on the replay you could argue he hould have squared it to Ameobi.

Ratings: Given 7, O'Brien 7, Dabizas, Griffin 8, Solano 7, Robert 6, Jenas 7, Speed 7, Dyer 7, Shearer 7.