The Japan Times - Unhappy Mbangula gives Juve advantage over PSV in Champions League play-offs

Winger Mbangula forced home his first goal in Europe's elite club competition eight minutes from the end at the Allianz Stadium to give Juve a lead to take to next week's second leg of their play-off tie with PSV.

The 21-year-old saved Juve from being stung by Ivan Perisic, who was a fan favourite at the Turin giants' fiercest rivals Inter Milan and cancelled out Weston McKennie's cracking first-half opener with a thunderous strike of his own 10 minutes after half-time.

However he was far from happy despite netting such an important goal, annoyed at himself and the passive way Juve reacted to Perisic's equaliser.

"Sure, I scored the winning goal, but I'm not happy with my performance. I know that I can do much better," said Mbangula to Sky in Italy.

"When we conceded we needed to keep playing the way we were beforehand because we were in control... With the quality we have in this team if we had kept playing as we had done we could have scored a lot more goals.

"It's difficult to be happy when you know you weren't good enough."

Juve travel to the Philips Stadion a week on Wednesday with a good chance of setting up a last-16 showdown with Inter, who they face in Turin on Sunday night after a third win in as many matches in all competitions.

Either Inter or Arsenal await whichever of these two teams makes it through the play-offs.

- Mbangula strikes -

Juve were the better team in the early stages and McKennie's thumping 34th-minute strike came in a first half in which the hosts were the better team but struggled to make the most of their supremacy.

Timothy Weah and Nicolas Gonzalez both forced good stops from PSV goalkeeper Walter Benitez, who also kept out Randal Kolo Muani with an instinctive save seconds before McKennie crashed in the opener.

PSV were dangerous however and both Ismael Saibari and Ryan Flamingo had good chances to snatch the lead in the 16th and 19th minutes, the former sloppily shooting wide a close-range effort after Juve goalkeeper Michele Di Gregorio flapped at a Perisic cross.

And it was Perisic who levelled the scores in the 56th minute with a brilliant strike, the 36-year-old cutting inside new Juve arrival Lloyd Kelly before lashing a low strike in at Di Gregorio's near post.

That finish came out of nowhere as Juve had been pressing for a second, and conceding to a despised former Inter man sucked the life out of the crowd and gave PSV a new lease of life.

Perisic was key to Inter winning the Serie A title in 2021 and ending Juve's dominance of Italian football, and he was clearly delighted at pegging back his old rivals.

But just as PSV looked to be escaping Turin with a draw Mbangula struck, confidently stroking home after Benitez pushed out Francisco Conceicao's low cross to give Juve a lead to defend in the Netherlands.

M.Matsumoto--JT