Juventus secured an impressive 3-1 win over Real Madrid on Wednesday night in Orlando’s Camping World Stadium and Weston McKennie was given the man of the match award – just a couple of months after leaving Leeds United.
McKennie, 24, failed at Leeds. There is no doubt about that. Glimpses of class, but nothing in particular that would have convinced Leeds to sign him permanently if the Whites had avoided relegation. He has gone back to Juventus.
His future with the Old Lady is in doubt. Two reasons. The first being that Juventus are likely to need to sell multiple players in order to balance the books – after a points deduction saw them miss out on European football for 23-24.
Secondly, his Leeds form was so poor that Juve will surely have placed him on the transfer list. But on Wednesday night, he earned the man of the match award. Juve opened the scoring inside a minute, Moise Kean tapping home.
It comes after McKennie slammed an effort against the post, Kean tapping in. He then laid on fellow American and new Juventus signing Timo Weah to score, cutting back perfectly. He lasted 67 minutes in the 3-1 win over Madrid.
McKennie wins Man of the Match against Madrid after leaving Leeds
It was a superb performance against top-tier opposition. Madrid started with a midfield that included new signing Jude Bellingham, as well as experienced duo Luka Modric and Toni Kroos. Eduardo Camavinga also started.
So, for McKennie to play the way he did is a real signal of intent from the USA star. He might have just convinced Juventus boss Max Allegri to give him a second chance. Italian media were impressed, but he was not their MOTM.
TuttoSport for example, gave him a rating of 6.5/10 – one of Juve’s best ratings, as McKennie saw out the best part of 90 minutes. But they say while he started “really strong”, he died off towards the end. A good step for him.
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