Milan: Argentina’s Juan Iturbe came off the bench to hit his first Torino goal and snatch a point in a 1-1 draw at home to Patrik Schick-inspired Sampdoria on Saturday.
The result left Torino, out of contention for Europe and well clear of the drop zone, in ninth place at 35 points behind leaders Juventus following their 2-2 draw at Atalanta on Friday.
“It wasn’t a bad game for us, but we deserved the win,” lamented Torino coach Sinisa Mihajlovic after a dominant but wasteful performance that has left his side looking ahead to next week’s derby visit to Juventus with some trepidation.
“It’s the derby next week and we can’t afford to waste a lot of chances like we did, because they’ll punish you.”
Sampdoria are one place and three points behind, but were carried along, for the first half at least, by 21-year-old Czech starlet Schick, who in the space of a month has become a target for some of Europe’s top clubs.
Enjoying a great maiden season in Italy’s top flight, Schick made waves last week with a classy 10th goal of the season in a 2-1 loss to Crotone that drew comparisons with Arsenal legend Dennis Bergkamp.
It was his fourth goal in his past five league outings, and the Sampdoria forward, capitalising on extra match time in the absence of injured striker Luis Muriel, showed that was no fluke with another classy effort that looked to have won the game for the visitors.
Against the run of play, Schick pounced before the quarter-hour with a left-footed curler that left England’s Joe Hart with no chance as the ball landed in the top corner.
But when the Czech sensation suffered a shoulder injury after landing awkwardly in a challenge, he lasted only minutes after the restart.
“He had a shoulder problem and although he wanted to continue, we had to take him off,” Sampdoria coach Marco Giampaolo told Sky Sport.
Hart was under pressure early in the second half, finger-tipping a looping Fabio Quagliarella header out from under the bar.
But Torino struck back, Lucas Boye forcing Christian Puggioni to parry before firing past the upright and Andrea Belotti heading over from a corner forced by his deflected effort.
When Boye fluffed a spectacular overhead kick, Belotti’s follow-up was charged down and then Matias Silvestre threw himself in front of Adem Ljajic’s strike.
Puggioni did well to thwart Belotti’s half-volley from a tight angle, but with 18 minutes remaining the Samp ‘keeper was finally undone.
Iturbe replaced Iago Falque on 72 minutes and had Torino level six minutes later, pouncing on Vasco Regini’s defensive blunder to drill past Puggioni from just inside the area.
It was his Iturbe’s first Torino goal since he signed on loan from Roma in January, having spent a previous, unsuccessful loan spell at Bournemouth.
The Argentine forward expressed his delight at scoring his first Serie A goal in nearly two years with a message on Twitter which said: “Back. Back to scoring. Back to being a kid. Back to smiling. Back to being ME!”
Torino had the momentum but when a corner was fired into the six-yard box confusion reigned as Belotti and Maxi Lopez spurned a chance by both swinging at the ball.
