TURIN, March 9 (Champions League) - Juventus' obsession with winning the Champions League will eat away at their fans, players and coach for at least another season after they crashed out of this year's competition at the hands of Deportivo La Coruna.
Walter Pandiani's goal for the visitors, who led 1-0 from the first leg, in the 12th minute left Juve needing three goals to progress into the quarter-finals, and the cushion proved more than enough as a disappointing Juve side lacked inspiration throughout.
Juve can point to their injury problems - striker David Trezeguet was missing while Alessandro Del Piero limped out of the action after only five minutes - but they can have no complaints about their elimination as they looked second best for most of both legs.
So the Turin giants must now reflect on why they were found so badly wanting, while nobody will want to meet Javier Irureta's slick Deportivo side in the last eight.
Juve restored skipper Del Piero to the starting line-up after he had been rested for the Serie A win at Brescia on Saturday, with Fabrizio Miccoli dropping to the bench.
But the Italian champions must have guessed it would not be their night when the Italy international had to leave the field in the early stages.
The 29-year-old playmaker pulled up with what looked like a recurrence of a calf injury, just seconds after he had sent a teasing cross into the Depor area.
Miccoli replaced Del Piero, but things became even worse for the Turin giants in the 12th minute.
Uruguayan Paolo Montero inexplicably failed to head away a long clearance from Depor keeper Jose Molina, and his international team-mate Pandiani took full advantage, controlling the ball before driving a superb shot into the top left-hand corner.
The goal left Juve punch drunk and they struggled to regain their composure, Mauro Camoranesi firing wide in the 16th minute after Marco Di Vaio had cut the ball back into his path from the left.
Italy international Camoranesi then chipped a clever ball through for Pavel Nedved, but the European Footballer of the Year just failed to get a toe to the ball before Molina came out to claim.
Pandiani was full of confidence after the goal and he almost put the tie beyond any doubt in the 27th minute, his audacious overhead kick flying just wide after Victor's left-wing cross had been deflected into his path by Ciro Ferrara.
Ferrara kept Juve in it five minutes later, showing real courage to throw himself into the path of Albert Luque's fierce left-foot volley, before Miccoli missed a great chance to level the scores on the night when he shot straight at Molina following another clever pass from Camoranesi.
Victor for Depor and Nedved for Juve both squandered acceptable chances as the half drew to a close with the Galicians firmly in charge.
The home fans would have been hoping their side would start the second half with the accelerator pressed to the floor, but they were disappointed as Depor's defence, with Portuguese international Jorge Andrade outstanding, had little difficulty repelling Juve's predictable forays forward.
The only time Marcello Lippi's team really threatened was in a four-minute spell midway through the second half.
First Miccoli saw his 25-yard curling free-kick superbly pushed around the post by Molina, and then Ghanaian midfielder Stephen Appiah was left cursing his luck as his speculative long range effort beat Molina but came back off the crossbar.
Juve's fate was sealed when Miccoli was sent clear by a fine pass from Alessio Tacchinardi in the 68th minute, but the pint-sized forward lost his composure at the vital moment and fired wildly high and wide.
Depor almost put the seal on an accomplished performance with a breakaway goal deep into stoppage time, but Victor chipped his effort against the angle of post and crossbar after being teed up by substitute Diego Tristan.
Irureta pleased with Pandiani hunch
Deportivo coach Javier Irureta basked in his decision to prefer Walter Pandiani to Diego Tristan in attack after the Uruguayan sealed the Spaniards' progress to the quarter-finals.
Pandiani scored the only goal of the second leg in Turin as a lacklustre Juve bowed out 2-0 on aggregate.
And Irureta said: 'I chose Pandiani because with a one goal lead to defend from the first leg he seemed the more suited for the kind of game we wanted to play here.
'We controlled the game almost throughout and Pandiani's goal virtually decided it all early on because Juve then needed to score three times.
'It was a much calmer game than we expected even though you know it is never going to be easy away to an Italian team, especially Juventus.
'We are certainly among the best eight sides in Europe, the results show that and I think we are capable of reaching even greater heights.'
Juve boss Marcello Lippi made no effort to avoid using his injury-list as an excuse for the early exit.
Lippi was without the likes of David Trezeguet and Igor Tudor, while Alessandro Del Piero left the field injured.
He said: 'It's a bitter feeling, very sad to go out of the Champions League, especially as we are used to going all the way. What really saddens me is that we couldn't give ourselves a real chance, with our full compliment of players.'
'You need a bit of luck in that sort of situation but we lost Del Piero early on and then gave away a disgraceful goal before straight away missing a chance.
'Despite that we kept trying after the break and had a few chances but you need something to happen to give you some faith,' added the Juventus coach.
'But we'll get over this. At this club we are used to being able to cope with adulation and also great disappointment.'
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Why did i ge the feeling i'd get the "you're not a true supporter" talk? Notice i said "we're a shite team atm", which is the absolue bloody truth. We're playing terribly AT THE MOMENT and don't have a snowball's chance in hell of competing with Europe's best week in, week out. 
