Although they were pegged back by the end of the match against Villarreal, Juventus started the Champions League tie like a train.
No sooner had Max Allegri taken his seat in the dugout, that new Bianconeri front man, Dusan Vlahovic, put the visitors to the Estadio de la Ceramica 1-0 ahead.
With only 33 seconds on the clock officially, everyone would’ve expected Juve to follow that very early goal up with at least one more, but it never materialised.
Indeed, it bizarrely appeared that Allegri’s charges were willing to accept that they would defend that lead for the other 89 and a half minutes, clearly a tactic that was never going to work.
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And so it proved.
It might have taken until the 66th minute for Villarreal to get their goal back, but it was always on the cards.
In fact, Juventus were relatively poor for the most part after taking the lead, so in that sense, the Spanish outfit should be heartened by their own overall performance.
Nothing can take away from what Dusan Vlahovic managed in the game however. Nothing at all.
His 33 second strike meant that he only trails Alessandro Del Piero in the Champions League for Juventus in terms of earliest ever strikes.
Earliest @juventusfces goals in a UEFA Champions League #UCL match:
[20 sec] Del Piero in 1997 (to Manchester United).
[33 sec.] VLAHOVIC in 2022 (to Villarreal)
[74 sec.] Higuaín in 2018 (to Tottenham)
[77 sec.] Mandzukic in 2018 (to Real Madrid) pic.twitter.com/4b8kkDDwpB— MisterChip (English) (@MisterChiping) February 22, 2022