Juventus 4-3 Napoli: Koulibaly own goal ruins stunning comeback | OneFootball

Juventus 4-3 Napoli: Koulibaly own goal ruins stunning comeback | OneFootball

Icon: Stats Perform

Stats Perform

·31 August 2019

Juventus 4-3 Napoli: Koulibaly own goal ruins stunning comeback

Article image:Juventus 4-3 Napoli: Koulibaly own goal ruins stunning comeback

Napoli roared back from 3-0 down against Juventus only for Kalidou Koulibaly's injury-time own goal to hand the Serie A champions a dramatic 4-3 victory on Saturday.

Juve, whose coach Maurizio Sarri was again absent from the Allianz Stadium due to a bout of pneumonia, produced a commanding performance for the first hour to open up a sizeable lead over Carlo Ancelotti's side.


OneFootball Videos


Danilo broke the deadlock with his first touch just 29 seconds into his debut as a substitute for Mattia De Sciglio, before Gonzalo Higuain doubled the lead against his old club and Cristiano Ronaldo struck a third.

Napoli were allowed back into the match through quick-fire goals from Kostas Manolas and Hirving Lozano, another man in his first Serie A outing, before Giovanni Di Lorenzo thought he had earned a dramatic draw.

However, in the second minute of injury time, Koulibaly put through his own net to gift Juve an early boost in the Scudetto race.

Wojciech Szczesny saved superbly from Allan and Juve struck within seconds of the resulting corner being cleared, as Douglas Costa raced into the box and pulled the ball back for Danilo to finish.

It was 2-0 three minutes later, Higuain spinning away from Koulibaly and firing into the top-right corner in fine style.

Victory for a commanding Juve was seemingly assured 62 minutes in, when Ronaldo met Costa's cut-back and placed a left-foot shot beyond the attempted block of Koulibaly and dive of Alex Meret for his first goal of the season.

Suddenly, though, they seemed to crumble. Manolas met Mario Rui's cross with a fine header and, barely two minutes later, Lozano slotted past Szczesny after being picked out by Piotr Zielinski from the left.

Costa's shot was brilliantly tipped onto the bar by Meret and, as anxiety seemed to build within the stands, Napoli snatched an equaliser when Di Lorenzo diverted Jose Callejon's delivery into the net from inside the six-yard box.

Yet with barely 90 seconds remaining, a hopeful free-kick was lofted into the Napoli area and Koulibaly sliced a clearance high into his own net with no Juve player nearby.