Felipe Caicedo fought back to snatch a late point for Lazio in St Petersburg, maintaining their unbeaten record in the Champions League with Zenit.
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Felipe Caicedo fought back to snatch a late point for Lazio in St Petersburg, maintaining their unbeaten record in the Champions League with Zenit.
Follow all the action as it happens from this game and Ferencvaros-Juventus on the LIVEBLOG.
The Aquile were again forced to do without Ciro Immobile, Thomas Strakosha, Lucas Leiva, Luis Alberto, Manuel Lazzari and Djavan Anderson due to COVID-19 tests, although the former three were negative in Serie A swabs. Stefan Radu and Senad Lulic were also long-term injury absentees, so Vedat Muriqi partnered Joaquin Correa. Zenit had lost both Champions League fixtures so far and missed Sardar Azmoun, Malcom and Sebastian Driussi.
There were 20,000 fans in the stadium, giving an atmosphere Lazio were no longer accustomed to, but curiously Simone Inzaghi changed his tactics to 4-4-2 after just five minutes.
Tucu Correa tried to score directly from the corner flag, hitting the side-netting, but the opening half-hour was very slow and uninspired from both teams.
The deadlock was broken with a team goal, as Artem Dzyuba knocked down a cross with his shoulder, Daler Kuzyaev nodded it back, Dzyuba got another header to set up the Aleksandr Erokhin volley from seven yards.
This woke Lazio up and they immediately raised the tempo, with a Mohamed Fares attempt deflected over and Muriqi’s header off target from Adam Marusic’s cross, but were too predictable to break through a defensive Zenit.
In fact, Zenit created the better chances after the restart, with Wesley Hoedt’s decisive last-ditch tackle on Erokhin’s counter-attack, then substitute Mostovoy skipped past two tackles to prod with the outside of the right boot, skimming the far post.
Lazio struggled to create any chances, Danilo Cataldi blasting well over from distance, then Correa was fouled just outside the area after combining with Felipe Caicedo. However, Cataldi hit the resulting free kick into the wall.
Marusic had penalty appeals when he fell backwards in a tussle with a defender, who had an arm over his shoulder, but the referee and VAR opted to wave play on.
Moments later, Caicedo’s diving header on a Sergej Milinkovic-Savic knockdown went wide, while Correa’s finish after a strong run was too weak to trouble the goalkeeper.
The Biancocelesti finally got their equaliser eight minutes from time. Andreas Pereira spread the play down the left for Francesco Acerbi to roll across and Caicedo timed the run perfectly to sweep into the near bottom corner.
The momentum was now with Lazio and Milinkovic-Savic’s rocket shaved a coat of paint off the far post from outside the box.
There was a huge scare in stoppages, as Lazio gave the ball away cheaply and Mostovoy was sent clear to score at the 93rd minute, but Dzyuba was flagged offside in the build-up.
Zenit 1-1 Lazio
Erokhin 32 (Z), Caicedo 82 (L)
Zenit: M Kerzhakov; Karavaev, Lovren, Rakitskiy, Douglas Santos; Zirkhov (Krugovoi 78), Barrios, Erokhin (Mostovoy 62); Kuzyaev (Wendel 91), Dzyuba, Ozdoev (Sutormin 91)
Lazio: Reina; Patric, Hoedt, Acerbi; Marusic, Akpa Akpro, Parolo (Cataldi 52), Milinkovic-Savic, Fares (Pereira 59); Correa (Luiz Felipe 85), Muriqi (Caicedo 59)
Ref: Artur Dias (POR)