A good start after summer of love

Season 2013-14

Game 32, Serie A

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Stadio Olimpico, Rome

Lazio Udinese 2-1

Three months of celebrating derby cup win were over but Lazio get win on league debut

This season under Vladimir Petkovic had not started so positively and Lazio lost the Super Coppa final 4-0 against a vastly superior Juventus. This however was the Serie A opener and Lazio were keen to kickoff well.

The match

The game did not bring the fans back from the beaches in droves, only 25,000 were present this evening.

Lazio wore shirts saying "We Love Football We Fight Racism" in an attempt to shed their reputation of having a racist fan base. In fact the Curva Nord was closed due to the usual minority of idiots booing against Juventus' black players in the recent Supercup.

Lazio surprisingly opted for a central defensive partnership of Diego Novaretti and Lorik Cana while in midfield Lucas Biglia was preferred to Cristian Ledesma.

Lazio dominated from the start and after five minutes hit a post with Antonio Candreva. Lazio attacked continuously and a minute later Álvaro Gonzalez went close with a header from a Luis Pedro Cavanda cross.

Lazio's positive start bore its fruits in the 13th minute. Hernanes went down the left wing and cut into the area before releasing an incredible left footed strike into the top hand corner from a seemingly unlikely angle. Lazio 1 Udinese 0.

There were still no signs of life from the Friulani and in the 16th minute Lazio had a penalty. Candreva put Miroslav Klose through and the German was pulled down by the keeper just inside the area on the left. Candreva took it and sent the keeper the wrong way with a low shot to the right. Lazio 2 Udinese 0.

Lazio showed no intention of relenting and a Stefan Radu header went wide before Hernanes almost made it three again but his low, long range left-footed shot was saved into corner by Kelava.

All Udinese could muster was a free kick from the left wing which was something between a shot and a cross and Federico Marchetti punched it away from the top corner.

Then it was Lazio again. A brilliant one -two with Gonzalez put Klose in front of goal but "Miro-gol " uncharacteristically hammered it wide and high. Halftime Lazio cruising and 2-0 up.

During the break the Bianconeri replaced an off form Di Natale with Maicosuel while Lazio changed injured defender Lorik Cana for André Dias.

Not much changed however and the second half started with a low Hernanes free kick which was parried by the keeper and then Senad Lulic couldn't find the target on the rebound.

On 50 minutes more chances for Lazio. Lulic to Candreva on the left, the Roman then squared it back to the Bosnian on the penalty spot but his shot was blocked by a defender. The move then continued and Candreva tried a curling shot from the left side of the area and it turned but not quite enough and went wide.

After an hour of total annihilation, Udinese struck out of the blue. A ball out of defence found Muriel completely unmarked just over the half way line, the Colombian took it forward and cleverly chipped Marchetti coming off his line. So in the 60th minute Lazio 2 Udinese 1 and the game changed completely. Just as the visitors seemed to be on the verge of collapse they suddenly found new belief and energy after being outplayed for an hour.

Udinese piled forward but in truth only had two real goal scoring opportunities. One came almost immediately after the goal and this time Andrea Lazzari was put through in the area but Marchetti came off his line with perfect timing and dived at Lazzari's feet deflecting the ball and saving the result. Then with fifteen minutes to go Piotr Zieliński misfired from a favourable position after Dias was naively dispossessed by Maicosuel.

Lazio tired and made further substitutions but managed to hold firm during a tense final minutes plus six of added time. Final score Lazio 2 Udinese 1.

A promising first hour for Lazio and then a worrying last half hour. They had utterly dominated the midfield and the game until one defensive slip seemed to dent their confidence. Hopefully it was also due to physical tiredness so early in the season, in fact Udinese had faded too in the last ten minutes or so.

Stand out players today were goal scorers Candreva and in particular Hernanes.

Who played for Lazio

Marchetti, Cavanda, Novaretti, Cana (46' Dias), Radu, A. Gonzalez (78' Onazi), Biglia, Hernanes, Lulic, Candreva, Klose (83' Floccari)