In their third pre-season friendly match, Les Aiglons suffered a first defeat, 2-0 away to Juventus at the Juventus Training Center on Friday. 

Les Aiglons faced a high-profile opponent in the form of Italian giants Juventus for this third pre-season friendly. Lining up in a 3-4-3 formation with Jansson, Orakpo and Diop up front, Olivier Pantaloni’s men managed to cause problems for a Juve side that was also still finding its feet. However, it was the home side who launched the first dangerous attack of the game. On the right flank, Celik managed to pick out Milik’s head in the box, but the header went wide (5’). Les Aiglons were quick to respond. Following a fine team move, Hamza Koutoune appeared to be fouled inside the box, but the referee waved play on (9’).

Just before the quarter-hour mark, Juventus opened the scoring through Douglas Luiz. Pressing Laurent Abergel, the Brazilian international managed to win the ball back before beating Yehvann Diouf with a shot into the top corner from the edge of the box (1–0, 12’). Despite falling behind, Nice did not give up and continued to play high up the pitch, but had to wait before fashioning a clear sighting on goal. After Jonathan Clauss won the ball back, Isaak Jansson broke forward and cut inside before finding Victor Orakpo and the young striker laid the ball off to Laurent Abergel with one touch. The Gym’s new signing tackled the ball through to Diop who, after holding it up, returned the ball to Abergel again on the edge of the 18-yard box, but his curling shot failed to trouble Di Gregorio (35’).

The enterprising Aiglons 

After the break, the Italian side looked more dangerous. Kelly’s header forced Boulhendi, who had come on at half-time, into a save on his line (52'). There was no time for the Nice defence to catch their breath, as they were caught out by a swift counter-attack from João Mário, but the Bianconero failed to get his shot on target (53'). After weathering the storm, Les Aiglons responded with two chances in the space of two minutes. Youssouf, from 20 metres out, sent the ball straight into the arms of Pinsoglio (66’), before Jonathan Clauss, well set up by Melvin Bard, came close to equalising with a half-volley that flew just wide of the right-hand upright (68’).

Olivier Pantaloni used the final quarter of an hour to make significant changes to his starting eleven, bringing on nine players, most of whom were youngsters. Les Aiglons pushed hard in the closing moments in search of an equaliser, but were eventually caught out a second time. Following a fine team move, Vasilije Adzic set up Justin Oboavwoduo, who beat Boulhendi with a side-foot finish into the bottom corner (2–0, 88’).

Despite another promising performance, Les Aiglons failed to score for the first time during this pre-season and went down, albeit with honours, to a very clinical Italian side.

Next match

After a week’s training back in Nice, Les Aiglons return to Italy to take on Cagliari on 8 August at 20:30.

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