Matthijs De Ligt’s Juventus career off to a stinker as he scores own goal before Ronaldo nets free-kick in penalty shoot-out win over Inter
MATTHIJS DE LIGT scored a clanger of an own-goal as the rocky start to his Juventus career continued in their International Champions Cup victory against Inter Milan.
The 19-year-old signed for the Italian champions in a staggering £67.5million transfer from Ajax last week but has had an uninspiring start to life with Juve since.
Having signed a five-year £53m contract with the old Lady of Turin, the Dutch centre-half made his debut against Spurs last Sunday but it was a game to forget for the youngster who had been courted by Manchester United and PSG before making the switch to Italy.
De Ligt was brought on to replace Lenardo Bonucci on 63 minutes and during the half-an-hour he was on the pitch, Spurs scored twice - including a worldie from Harry Kane - to snatch a 3-2 win.
THREE GOALS IN 37 MINUTES
And he made things even worse for himself against Inter when he gifted them the lead after just ten minutes of the clash with Juve in Nanjing, China.
Stefano Sensi swung in a corner which was flicked on at the near post by Roberto Gagliardini and rather than clear, the flat-footed De Ligt could only shin it into his own goal.
When the ball struck the net De Ligt had played just 37 minutes for Juve and conceded three goals in that time with the most recent being scored by himself.
Luckily for the defender, Cristiano Ronaldo bagged an equaliser for Maurizio Sarri's team with around 20 minutes remaining.
Both teams came close to a winner but neither could make their chances count and the game went to penalties.
Juve soared into a 3-1 shootout lead with pens from Joao Cancelo, Ronaldo and ex-Liverpool man Emre Can.
But when ex-West Ham midfielder Joao Mario and Nicolo Barella scored for Inter, misses from Adrien Rabiot and Federico Bernadeschi sent it to sudden death.
However the shootout did not last much longer as Gigi Buffon immediately saved Borja Valero's strike which left Merih Demiral to sweep home the final pen to seal the win for Juve.
LATEST FOOTBALL NEWS
However, despite De Ligt's eventual victory, fans on Twitter were still not impressed by the Dutchman's actions.
Takerluke said: "Surely not flopping already. People will hate me for saying this but I really do think he is over-hyped just a little bit at the very least."
While one Man Utd fan posted: "We dodged a bullet there... FLOP!"
