Four sent off in furious brawl as Juventus denied 94th-minute winner by VAR in chaotic scenes during Salernitana draw
FOUR stars were red carded in stoppage time as Juventus’ 2-2 draw with Salernitana descended into chaos last night.
The Serie A giants found themselves 2-0 down at half-time following an atrocious first-half performance in Turin.
Things improved for the hosts in the second period, with Gleison Bremer heading them back into the game in the 51st minute.
They finally equalised in the 93rd minute, when Leonardo Bonucci swept home the rebound from his own penalty miss.
With just seven seconds left of the allocated stoppage time Arkadiusz Milik appeared to have won it when he brilliantly headed home a corner.
The Pole went wild in celebration, removing his shirt and hurling it into the air.
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Milik, 28, had already been booked, however, and was subsequently shown a second yellow and sent off.
Then as the two teams were about to kick-off things went from bad to worse for Juve as VAR ordered the referee to review the goal for a possible offside.
Players pushed and shoved as they tried to talk to the referee, with Juan Cuadrado and Federico Fazio particularly getting into it.
The official eventually got to the monitor and opted to disallow the goal – deeming Bonucci to have interfered with play from an offside position without touching the ball – despite his action having very little effect on the outcome.
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In addition to disallowing Milik’s winner, the ref also flashed red cards at Cuadrado and Fazio – having fully lost control of the game.
Before play could resume furious boss Massimiliano Allegri was also shown a red card for his protests.
After the match it emerged that the angle the referee was shown didn’t include Salernitana ace Antonio Candreva… who appeared to be playing Bonucci onside.
Following the chaos, Bonucci told DAZN: “I am less than a meter behind the goal area, Candreva seems to be above. If you see the colour of the turf, Candreva could keep me onside.
“I hope they [referees] considered his position, but I guess we’ll never know it.
“Regardless of that, I was not involved in active play and the Salernitana defender even took my shirt off.
“Now we must analyse the first half, if we play like that, we’ll go nowhere. If we play like in the second half, we can have a role in the league.”