Juventus held to scoreless home draw in Turin derby
TURIN, Italy: Juventus largely dominated but were unable to get the better of neighbors Torino in a 0-0 home draw on Saturday, dealing a blow to Luciano Spalletti’s side’s hopes of gaining ground in the Serie A title race. The hosts had won their last two Serie A games since sacking manager Igor Tudor, one of those victories coming in Spalletti’s first game in charge, but a largely toothless derby display left the crowd frustrated. Juve are fifth in the standings on 19 points from 11 games, two points behind Inter Milan, AC Milan and AS Roma, who all have a match in hand, with leaders Napoli on 22 points ahead of Sunday’s game at Bologna. Torino are in 11th place on 14 points. The opening half may have been mostly one-way traffic but Juventus struggled to create any real opportunities against their neighbors, any half-chances that came their way inspired by Francisco Conceicao. The Portuguese winger played a decent ball into Dusan Vlahovic just outside the six-yard area but Torino defender Guillermo Maripan did well to get ahead of the Serbian striker to clear the danger. Conceicao also had a shot from a wide angle go narrowly the wrong side of the upright.
