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| Ig@circletalkslive |
Juventus beat AC Milan 1-0 in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to win the Italian Super Cup for a record eighth time.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored the only goal of the match to win his first trophy with Juventus.
Milan had to play the final 16 minutes with 10 men after midfielder Franck Kessie was sent off following a poor tackle on Emre Can, which saw him stamp on the Juventus midfielder.
Gonzalo Higuain, who is on loan at Milan from Juventus, had also been a focus of the build-up to the match ahead of a potential move to Chelsea, but the Argentina forward was named on the bench against his parent club.
Italian politicians and human rights activists had objected to the game being played in Saudi Arabia, citing the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
But the match went ahead at a sold-out King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah in front of more than 61,000 fans, including many women who were only allowed into Saudi sports stadiums a year ago for the first time to watch soccer matches.
Blaise Matuidi had a goal for Juventus disallowed for offside while Ronaldo saw an acrobatic effort bounce narrowly over the crossbar in an even first half which also saw Juve goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny pull off a good save to deny Hakan Calhanoglu.
Milan almost took the lead immediately after half-time but Patrick Cutrone's effort came off the crossbar.
The Rossoneri were left to rue that missed opportunity as Ronaldo broke the deadlock in the 61st minute, heading home from Miralem Pjanic's pass over the top.
Juventus had another goal disallowed for offside but any chance Milan had of getting back into the match all but evaporated after Kessie was sent off in the 74th.
Referee Luca Banti initially showed Kessie only a yellow card but changed it to a red after seeing the late tackle again on video review.
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