Toro wastes, Lazio draws
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Stefano Pioli’s Lazio, fresh from the defeat against Sassuolo in the last round of the championship, tries to raise its head again against Giampiero Ventura’s Toro at the Stadio Olimpico in Turin.
For the Biancocelesti, however, the match immediately went uphill: Belotti found his seventh goal of the season as a true opportunist in the 11th, taking advantage of Marchetti’s short clearance on Acquah’s powerful conclusion. It is then the same Belotti who gets himself a penalty kick only 10 minutes later for a naive foul by Cataldi that brings down the ‘Gallo’ inside the biancoceleste penalty area. Immobile from 11 yards, however, blatantly missed by kicking the ball sky high and wasting the chance to make it 2-0.
Lazio failed to react and so Toro, again with Immobile, again came close to doubling the score: after a personal action of power and technique, the Neapolitan bomber kicked badly and the ball went just wide of Marchetti’s left. Pioli, enraged, removed Lulic and Cataldi and threw Braafheid and Milinkovic-Savic into the fray, but the first half ended 1-0 to the Granata.
The second half opened again in the sign of the Toro, unable to take advantage of the inattentions of a Lazio that, as the minutes passed, gained more and more courage and began to show up more dangerously from Padelli’s sides.
In the 22nd, the biancocelesti came close to equalizing: Parolo let off a perfect shot that, however, was printed on the post to the left of the Granata goalkeeper, who was very good a few moments later in opposing Biglia’s free kick. The goal, however, was in the air and Keita, who had just entered, earned a penalty kick that the biancoceleste captain converted without hesitation for the 1-1 goal in the 78th minute. In the final quarter of an hour Torino and Lazio had a chance on each side with Zappacosta and Keita but at the Olimpico di Torino the lunch match of the 28th day ended 1-1.
