MONACO — Juventus ground out a 0-0 draw with Monaco on Wednesday to secure a 1-0 win on aggregate and become the first Italian team since Inter won the competition in 2010 to qualify for the Champions League semifinals.
Arturo Vidal’s penalty goal in the first leg of their quarterfinal in Italy proved decisive.
Watch match highlights: Real Madrid 1, Atletico Madrid 0 || AS Monaco 0, Juventus 0
The two-time European champion, stopped in the quarterfinals in 2013, 2006 and 2005, will play in the semis for the first time since 2003, when Juventus was a losing finalist on penalties to AC Milan.
With Real Madrid beating Atletico 1-0 in Wednesday’s other quarterfinal, the semifinals now offer the mouthwatering prospect of four top teams that have all won European football’s premier club competition multiple times. Barcelona and Bayern Munich round out the clubs in Friday’s draw.
Juventus is also running away with its fourth consecutive Serie A title and can complete a domestic double in the Italian Cup final against Lazio on June 7. Making the Champions League semis is a much-needed fillip both for Juventus and Italian club football, which has slipped behind Germany in European rankings and struggled to keep up with Europe’s highest-earning teams.
"It’s a very big year for Juventus and we have to savour it," said coach Massimiliano Allegri. "We are laying the foundations to become a very strong club."
Against a Monaco team packed with speed and youth, the experience of Juventus’ veterans quickly told. With 198 Champions League appearances between them, midfielder Andrea Pirlo and left-back Patrice Evra had played 30 matches more at this level than the entire Monaco starting 11.
Pirlo, a Champions League winner with the Milan team that beat Juventus in 2003, came closest to breaking the stalemate in Monaco’s Louis II stadium with an artful free-kick late in the second half that shaved paint off Danijel Subasic’s posts.
For Monaco, Geoffrey Kondogbia threatened from midfield. The crowd howled for a first-half penalty when Vidal and defender Giorgio Chiellini sandwiched the tall, powerful 22-year-old as he charged with the ball at his feet into the Juventus box, bringing him down. Referee William Collum waved play on.
Needing a goal to erase Juventus’ slender first-leg advantage, Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim left the experience of former Manchester United striker Dimitar Berbatov on the bench until halftime, when he reshuffled his deck, taking off deep-lying midfielder Jeremy Toulalan, suffering the lingering effects of a hamstring injury that forced him to miss the first leg.
With Berbatov weighing on the Juventus defence, the effect was immediate. Monaco created more work for Juventus in a second-half of sustained pressure. But last season’s French league runner-up has struggled to score at home this season and this match proved no different. With 12 attempts on goal, but only one on target, Monaco never really sweated Juventus’ evergreen 37-year-old ‘keeper Gianluigi Buffon in his 85th Champions League appearance.
Laid low by tonsillitis earlier in the week, Vidal didn’t last the match, substituted after 77 minutes. Allegri said other players also got sick, including forwards Carlos Tevez and Alvaro Morata, who vomited on the bench after Fernando Llorente replaced him midway through the second half.
Their efforts did not go unrewarded, though, as Juventus made sure of its place in the semifinals.
Turin’s ‘Old Lady’ is back among Europe’s elite.