Serie A | Sassuolo 1-2 Genoa: Gudmundsson magic

Albert Gudmundsson inspired the Genoa comeback to stun Sassuolo with a penalty and acrobatic flying back-heel flick assist for Caleb Ekuban.

Both teams were rather surprisingly locked together on 16 points in joint 14^th place going into this round. Domenico Berardi was ruled out by flu symptoms, joining Gregoire Defrel, Mattia Viti, Uros Racic, Agustin Alvarez and Pedro Obiang on the treatment table for the hosts. The Grifone missed Mateo Retegui, Junior Messias and Berkan Kutlu after holding Juventus to a 1-1 draw.

Genoa threatened several times without getting shots away, but were caught out on the counter when Armand Lauriente sprinted from midfield and drew out the goalkeeper, generously rolling it across for Andrea Pinamonti to finish against his former club.

Albert Gudmundsson’s angled drive skimmed the far post, but Josep Martinez needed a spectacular reaction save on the stroke of half-time as Matheus Henrique tried to sweep in from 10 yards on another Lauriente’ pull-back.

Milan Badelj aimed a free header over the bar from the Stefano Sabelli knockdown, while Gudmundsson had two chances in 10 seconds, the first parried by Andrea Consigli’s legs, the second blasted over the bar.

Morten Thorsby came on and immediately stung Consigli’s gloves at the near post, then the goalkeeper struggled to control a Ruslan Malinovskyi volley into the ground.

However, VAR showed that before the Malinovskyi effort, that corner was flicked on by De Winter and struck Martin Erlic on the arm. A penalty was awarded and Gudmundsson converted with the inside of the right boot.

Sassuolo wasted several promising situations with bad finishing and paid for it, as Genoa turned the game around completely.

It was a stunning Gudmundsson flying back-heel flick in the centre-circle that sent Ekuban sprinting against Erlic to place an angled drive into the far bottom corner.

Sassuolo 1-2 Genoa

Pinamonti 28 (S), Gudmundsson pen 64 (G), Ekuban 87 (G)