MILAN: Juventus’ hopes of winning a 10th consecutive Serie A title took another blow on Sunday with a 1-0 home loss to lowly Benevento.

Argentine forward Adolfo Gaich scored the game’s only goal in the 69th minute following a bad pass across the penalty area from Juve midfielder Arthur.

Andrea Pirlo’s side stay third, 10 points behind Inter Milan whose match against Sassuolo was postponed because of a Covid-19 outbreak at the league leaders.

It was a fourth league defeat for Juve, who have 11 games left to play this season, and another blow after being dumped out of the Champions League at the last 16 stage by Porto earlier this month. “It’s not a question of pressure, we had to play a better game, we had to win,” said Pirlo. “We had a bad game in every way. We rushed too much, we made too many mistakes.

Cristiano Ronaldo had scored a hat-trick last time out against Cagliari in the league, to bring his tally to a record 770 career goals in official matches.

And the 36-year-old was presented with a ‘GOAT’ jersey by club president Andrea Agnelli before kick-off for breaking Brazil legend Pele’s official goalscoring record.

But the Serie A top scorer, who has scored 23 times in the league this season drew a blank at the Allianz Stadium with Benevento goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipo pulling off a string of fine saves.

Ronaldo fired wide minutes into the game and had the ball in the net just before the break only to be ruled offside, while Montipo denied Alvaro Morata an opener after half an hour.