Ronaldo Sees Red As 10-Man Juventus Beat Valencia 2-0

By Danny Ward

There was drama at the Mestalla Stadium on Wednesday as Juventus beat Valencia 2-0 in a game that produced three penalty kicks and reduced Cristiano Ronaldo to tears with a straight red card.

Ronaldo made his first business trip to Spain having left Real Madrid for Juventus this summer, but his hope of replicating his illustrious 9-year stint in Spain with a memorable Champions League debut fell flat when he was sent off in the 20th minute after an incident with Jeison Murillo.

Ronaldo approached the edge of the Valencia penalty box and appeared to be pushing off Murillo, who also looked like obstructing him.

The defender fell to the turf, and referee Felix Brych directed a straight red card at the Juventus attacker who protested and cried his way into the dressing room.

Neto proved effective in the early stages of the game as he pulled a double save to prevent Blaise Matuidi and Sami Khedira from scoring in the 3rd and 7th minutes respectively.

Sami Khedira fired wide ten minutes later, three minutes before Cristiano Ronaldo was shown a controversial red card after an incident on the edge of the penalty box with Murillo

Juventus were resilient despite being a man down, and Valencia could not make their superior numeric advantage count when they conceded on the stroke of halftime.

Skipper Dani Parejo brought down Pjanic in the 18-yard box leading to a penalty which the latter converted nicely.

Valencia searched for the equaliser right after the restart, but Rodrigo headed straight into Wojciech Szczesny’s hands in the 50th minute before Murillo pulled down Mandzukic in the penalty box a minute later to earn the visitors their second penalty kick which Pjanic again converted.

Goncalo Guedes forced a good save from Szczesny with an equally good header in the 56th minute, and Valencia with a penalty to reduce the deficit for the hosts, in the dying embers of the game, shot into the hands of the goalkeeper to end the game at 2-0.