Weston McKennie stepped up in another final, but the American star couldn’t get his hands on another trophy despite a heroic performance.
The U.S. men’s national team star scored the opening goal in the Supercoppa Italiana on Tuesday, but Juventus couldn’t hold onto the lead, surrendering a last-minute winner to Inter Milan in a 2-1 loss.
McKennie was arguably Juventus’ best player, delivering a 25th-minute header goal to give the Bianconeri a 25th-minute lead. McKennie got on the end of a cross from Alvaro Morata and directed a high-looping header toward the lower right corner of the goal.
The Juventus lead didn’t hold though, as Lautaro Martinez converted a game-tying penalty kick in the 35th minute.
The teams stayed deadlocked through relegation and through almost a full 30 minutes of extra time when Alexis Sanchez pounced on a poor Juventus pass and slotted home the winner in what turned out to be the final kick of the match to deny Juventus the trophy.
It was a bittersweet ending for McKennie, who put together a strong overall performance that included two shots, eight duels won and five recoveries.
It has been a tumultuous season for Juventus. The Turin club struggled out of the gate in Serie A, but has recovered lately to a put together seven-match unbeaten streak in Serie A action. McKennie played 90 minutes in a thrilling come-from-behind 4-3 win against Roma to inject even more hope for a surge in the second half of the season.
Juventus returns to action on Saturday against Udinese.
“Star spangled banger” – I like it!
He might be the best US player right now. Juventus was done in by very poor play by the defense for the 2 goals. The penalty in the box was stupid play and the winning goal came on a real bad error in judgment when the left CB chested down a ball and tried to chest it over to the other CB when Milan had men in the box. In the scramble for the loose ball Sanchez came running in to poke in the winner. McKennie made one bad pass that I remember, but generally was a real spark plug for the Old Lady.
Is Juve SURE they wanna sell him? He’s sure looking like arguably their best player the last few matches for them and is certainly their engine in the midfield.
That rumor was either erroneous or they changed their mind. Tottenham offered a straight up trade for Ndombele and Juve refused. I suppose that means both of them value McKennie higher than Ndombele, which is a good endorsement