Gianluca Caprari’s well-taken brace allowed Hellas Verona to win away to Spezia despite having eight players out with COVID-19.
This game was allowed to go ahead despite 10 people in the Verona group testing positive for COVID-19, including eight players: Lorenzo Montipò, Alessandro Berardi, Giangiacomo Magnani, Mert Çetin, Diego Coppola, Marco Davide Faraoni, Gianluca Frabotta, Matteo Cancellieri, Daniel Bessa and Antonino Ragusa. That didn’t include injured Pawel Dawidowicz and Martin Hongla on Africa Cup of Nations duty. Spezia also had several COVID cases, missing M’Bala Nzola, Rey Manaj, Aleksandar Kovalenko and Hristov, with Ebrima Colley on international duty.
This was a special event, as it was Verona’s 1,000th Serie A match, becoming the 17th club to achieve that feat.
Darko Lazovic caused several problems early on down the Verona left, but Arkadiusz Reca forced the first real save at the near post for Spezia.
Lazovic was a constant thorn in Spezia’s side, his double chance on 33 minutes with the first charged down, the second smacking against the crossbar.
Amian drilled just wide after chesting down a Simone Bastoni cross-field pass, but Verona were the better team with Ivan Provedel rushing out to close down Kevin Lasagna.
They took the lead on the hour mark. Spezia were caught in possession in midfield and the counter-attack worked well, Giovanni Simeone rolling across the six-yard box for Gianluca Caprari to fire in at the back post.
Spezia had penalty appeals rejected moments later, as it was instead judged to be a foul on the goalkeeper, then Daniele Verde’s cross-shot was fingertipped over the bar.
However, Verona doubled their lead with Caprari again, blasting in a left-foot strike from distance on Lasagna’s assist.
Martin Erlic was the last to give in and his long-range strike was palmed round the post by Pandur, the same player scoring with a header on the resulting corner.
Just as Spezia had some hope, Kevin Agudelo lost his mind and received a straight red card for a ridiculous high boot on Fabio Depaoli.
Spezia 1-2 Verona
Caprari 59, 70 (V), Erlic 85 (S)
Sent off: Agudelo 85 (S)