Mueez Ajao
– Roma made an extraordinary comeback from 2-0 down to hold Hellas Verona with a decimated squad, as teenage substitutes Cristian Volpato and Edoardo Bove repaid Jose Mourinho’s faith.
– Gianluca Mancini was suspended, with Nicolò Zaniolo, Stephan El Shaarawy and Leonardo Spinazzola injured. There was another COVID outbreak within the squad affecting Roger Ibanez, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Eldor Shomurodov and Carles Perez. Hellas used Ivan Ilic, as Miguel Veloso was not 100 per cent fit.
– It took barely five minutes to break through, as Verona made a well-worked free kick routine pay off. Rui Patricio parried the Marco Davide Faraoni cross-shot from the right, but only into the path of Antonin Barak.
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– Lorenzo Pellegrini tested Lorenzo Montipò from distance, but Verona were playing beautiful football and scored their second with another excellent team move.
– Ilic and Gianluca Caprari combined, pulling back from the by-line for Adrien Tameze to blast into the roof of the net from six yards. Tameze had been involved from the start of the move in the centre-circle.
– Giovanni Simeone had the ball in the net on 32 minutes, but was flagged inches offside. Roma did better after two changes in the second half, Jordan Veretout hitting the side-netting from a Tammy Abraham cross, but above all with youth team player Cristian Volpato.
– Within three minutes of his debut for the senior squad, he had found the net, a corner only cleared to the edge of the box where he thumped it through a crowd of legs for 2-1. The 18-year-old Australian became the youngest player to score in Serie A this season, beating his Roma teammate Felix Afena-Gyan.
– Pellegrini ran into the box and went down far too easily under pressure, the referee was close by and waved play on.
– The Giallorossi were increasingly threatening in the search for a late equaliser, Rick Karsdorp’s cross flashed past Abraham, Pellegrini and Volpato in the box.
– It paid off with another product of the Primavera youth team finding the net for the first time in his senior career. A corner came to Edoardo Bove, everyone assumed he was going to square it across the six-yard box from the right, but instead he just blasted it into the near bottom corner to wrong-foot Montipò.
– Roma weren’t content with a draw, they wanted to win, Koray Gunter with a decisive sliding block on Abraham. Jose Mourinho was sent off for dissent, but went to hug Verona boss Igor Tudor before leaving the touchline.
