MILAN (AP) — Injury-hit Juventus clearly missed Ángel Di María as they were held to a 0-0 draw at Sampdoria in Serie A.
Di María had added some much-needed flair to the Juventus side and scored on his debut last weekend as well as providing an assist as the Bianconeri opened the season with a 3-0 win over Sassuolo.
However, he went off injured in that match and could also miss next weekend’s key game against Roma, which beat newly promoted Cremonese 1-0 on Monday to make it two wins out of two.
Juventus were also missing Paul Pogba as well as Federico Chiesa, Kaio Jorge and goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny, while veteran defender Leonardo Bonucci was only fit for a place on the bench.
Sampdoria had hit the woodwork — twice — in a 2-0 loss to Atalanta last weekend and did so again in the opening few minutes following Mehdi Léris’ effort.
Shortly afterward, Juventus almost scored an own-goal as Bianconeri forward Dušan Vlahović kicked a corner onto his own post.
Juventus thought they had broken the deadlock in the 65th minute but Adrien Rabiot’s strike was disallowed because Vlahović was in an offside position in the buildup.