Serie A | Udinese 2-1 Lazio: Friulani surprise the favoured Aquile

Udinese held off a late Lazio comeback when down to 10 men, as Lorenzo Lucca and Florian Thauvin gave them a precious and unexpected victory.

The Aquile had a strong start to the season, fighting back from an early goal to beat Venezia 3-1, but Luca Pellegrini joined Mario Gila on the sidelines after a car accident and Matias Vecino stepped into midfield. Udinese got a creditable draw away to Bologna on their debut, though Alexis Sanchez joined Gerard Deulofeu, Thomas Kristensen and Damian Pizarro on the treatment table.

See how it all unfolded on the LIVEBLOG.

There was confusion around the opening goal, as at first the offside flag was up during the build-up, but the whistle did not go as Lorenzo Lucca nodded in the Florian Thauvin cross. This allowed VAR to intervene and confirm it was not offside.

Kingsley Ehizibue hit the side-netting when he perhaps should’ve passed to Lucca instead, then the rising Thauvin strike from a tricky angle was fingertipped away by Ivan Provedel.

Tijjani Noslin and Mattia Zaccagni both badly shinned volleys off target, then in first half stoppages there was a huge opportunity as the corner was flicked on by Alessio Romagnoli and cleared off the line by Ehizibue.

Udinese doubled their lead after the restart, as Matteo Guendouzi’s misplaced pass in midfield allowed Thauvin to simply run at goal and stroke the finish into the far bottom corner from 12 yards, with nobody really closing him down.

Brenner’s volley on a Karlstrom cross was parried by an outstretched Provedel boot, then Matias Vecino tested Okoye.

Boulaye Dia came on for his Lazio debut and Udinese went down to 10 men, as Hassane Kamara received his second yellow card for a lunge on Gustav Isaksen.

Taty Castellanos turned a free header wide on Manuel Lazzari’s cross, Zaccagni’s control and turn was smothered, then Dia’s effort was deflected.

Lazio did finally get one back deep into stoppages when Okoye only parried a Zaccagni snapshot into the path of Isaksen, who was not offside.

It set up a fiery finale, the cross was whipped in for both Castellanos and Dia at the back post, seeing it bundled wide.