Lazio left it late to rescue a point at home to relegation-threatened Lecce on Friday evening, as Sergej Milinkovic-Savic’s 94th minute equaliser denied Marco Baroni’s side all three points after an impressive display at the Stadio Olimpico.
Lazio came into the evening ranked third place in the Serie A standings, with an opportunity to to temporarily leapfrog over Juventus into second, while Lecce, despite their strong showing in the opening half of the season, found themselves in 16th after picking up just one win in their previous 11 league outings.
Maurizio Sarri’s team had also suffered a blip in form heading into proceedings at the Olimpico, having picked up just three points from their last four games, following recent losses to Milan, Inter and Torino.
It was Lecce, however, who made a speedy start to proceedings, looking to release Banda with a long-ball within the opening two minutes, but Provedel was able to collect neatly.
It became clear that the battle between Lecce’s speedy left-winger and Lazio’s right-back Manuel Lazzari was going to be key, and within 15 minutes, both had been shown yellows by referee Fabio Maresca.
After yet another coming together between the two, Lazio felt that Banda should have been dismissed. Maresca, however, deemed the challenge to be worthy of a Lecce free-kick. Lazzari received a stern telling off for protesting the decision.
The resulting free-kick barely made its way into the Lazio penalty area, although chaos ensued shortly afterwards as Elseid Hysaj bundled into the back of Alexis Blin right on the edge of the Biancocelesti penalty area.
Lecce’s top scorer, Gabriel Strefezza was unable to capitalise on the early gift from Sarri’s men, and put the resulting spot-kick wide of Ivan Provedel’s right post.
Ciro Immobile made the visitors pay shortly afterwards, timing his run perfectly to latch onto Luis Alberto’s neat ball into the area and dispatched past Falcone from close range to put Lazio 1-0 up after 35 minutes.
Lecce did not let their heads drop, however, and always looked like they would be capable of scoring at some stage of the game. That opportunity came seconds before half-time, stunning Lazio on the counter attack, before Remi Oudin found the bottom corner from the edge of the area to level the tie with virtually the last kick of the first half.
Lecce came out firing in the second half as well, looking to capitalise on a relatively slow start from Lazio. Banda fired a venomous half-volley towards the Biancocelesti net, which stung the palms of Provedel.
The visitors punished Sarri’s side shortly afterwards, as Strafezza carried the ball dangerously into the penalty area, before laying off to Oudin, who reacted quickly to fire a first-time effort past Provedel to put Lecce 2-1 up with his second of the evening after 51 minutes.
Lecce continued to perform bravely for the minutes following their goal. Lazio began to look frustrated, and the referee began to dish out the bookings. By full-time, there had been nine in total, including the caution shown to Sarri midway through the second half.
The clock appeared to be ticking down for Lazio and, with each passing second, an equaliser started to look less and less likely.
However, in the final half hour of the game in Rome, they began to throw more and more bodies forward and put in a series of interesting looking crosses into the Lecce area.
The visitors, for the most part, had dealt with the threats comfortably, but disaster eventually struck deep into injury time. Yet another Lazio cross came in, which Lecce were unable to clear at the first time of asking, before the ball ended up directly in front of the head of Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, whose rebound took a hefty deflection off Samuel Umtiti before trickling past a helpless Falcone.
With less than two minutes left on the clock when the referee blew for the restart of play, a fifth goal of the evening was unlikely, and after 97 minutes, the spoils were shared.
As a result, both sides have maintained their positions in the table. Lecce remain in 16th, five points clear of the drop zone, whilst Lazio, still in third, will hold onto their spot in the top four regardless of what happens in the other Serie A fixtures this weekend.
Up next for Lazio is an away trip to face Udinese next Sunday, and Lecce will now turn their attention to next weekend’s relegation six-pointer against Spezia.