Tuesday 26 July 2016 14:54, UK
An inexperienced Tottenham side kicked off the club’s pre-season campaign with a narrow 2-1 defeat to Juventus in Melbourne.
Spurs have left a number of key players at home for the International Champions Cup campaign, including Harry Kane and Eric Dier, but their youthful side showed encouraging signs - especially in the second-half - against a Juventus team that included Paulo Dybala and Miralem Pjanic.
Dybala and Medhi Benatia gave the Serie A giants an early lead but Erik Lamela reduced the deficit in the second period after a powerful run from new signing Victor Wanyama, who made his first Spurs appearance along with striker Vincent Janssen.
Spurs started the match with a defence that consisted of three players yet to make their professional debut for the club - Dominic Ball, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Will Miller - and it showed.
Dybala is a tricky customer to handle for even the most experienced of defenders, therefore it was no surprise to see him take full advantage of Ball's error on six minutes.
The youngster was caught in possession and the mistake was immediately punished as Dybala skilfully struck the opener past Michel Vorm.
Mauricio Pochettino's team continued to try and play out from the back but it was causing them more harm than good.
Some sloppy play led to a Juve corner and another error - this time a poor clearance - enabled Benatia - a recent signing from Bayern Munich - to loop home a clever header into the top corner.
Pochettino made three changes at the break and Lamela and Josh Onomah injected some pace and power as Spurs managed to cause Juventus some problems.
Pjanic, who recently joined from Roma for £30million, wasted a glorious opportunity when blazing wide from close range just before Lamela halved Juve's advantage.
The Argentine reacted with a fine finish into the bottom-right corner after Wanyama, who had been pretty quiet up until this point, won back possession deep in opposition territory and slid a lovely ball through for his team-mate.
Juventus goalkeeper Neto had to be quick to block away another effort from Lamela and then showed ever sharper reactions to claw away a Shayon Harrison effort.
Pochettino's young side have a chance to register their first points in the pre-season competition on Friday against Atletico Madrid in Melbourne.
