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Champions League: Zaidu Sanusi Trumps Cristiano Ronaldo In Pair’s First Ever Clash

The Super Eagles left-back faced his biggest challenge yet when Porto welcomed the Portuguese superstar and his Juventus side to the Estádio do Dragão, and he passed it successfully 

Zaidu Sanusi gave a good account of himself when he came up against Cristiano Ronaldo as Porto stunned Juventus in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 encounter.

Sanusi was on the pitch for the entire duration of the match- which was his seventh appearance in seven Champions League games this season.

The 23-year-old was solid defensively as he was not dribbled all night. Sanusi won eight of the 14 duels he faced while he was also brilliant going forward.

Meanwhile, Ronaldo struggled all night for the Old Lady with just one shot on target to leave Juventus needing a solid performance in the second leg to progress.

Porto took the lead inside two minutes through Iranian striker Mehdi Taremi. The Dragons were brilliant from the start but had to settle for 1-0 lead going into the break.

However, a minute after half-time, Malian striker, Moussa Marega doubled the home side’s advantage following a ball from Wilson Manafa.

Sérgio Conceição’s men had many chances to put the game beyond Andrea Pirlo’s men, but they were profligate in front of goal.

They would eventually rue those misses as Federico Chiesa pulled one back eight minutes from time to give Andrea Pirlo’s men a lifeline going into the second leg at the Allianz Stadium.

This post was last modified on February 17, 2021 11:17 pm

Joba Ogunwale

Oluwajoba Ogunwale has many years of experience as a sports content writer. The most recent of these was at Opera News, after which he took up the role of Editor-in-Chief at Soccernet.

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