Monza thought they had done enough to pick up all three points after turning around the early Sandi Lovric goal, but a stoppage-time Beto penalty kept Udinese in it.
Both sides were doing far better than expected this season and were tussling for a spot in the top 10. Roberto Pereyra and Gianluca Caprari sat out bans, with Gerard Deulofeu, Enzo Ebosse, Dany Mota Carvalho and Filippo Ranocchia injured. Monza had extra motivation, as President Silvio Berlusconi was in hospital with a chest infection.
The visitors had two early penalty appeals waved away for Jaka Bijol’s handling offence and Rodrigo Becao in a tussle with Mattia Valoti.
Udinese broke the deadlock when Sandi Lovric ran onto an inspired Walace through ball to spring the offside trap and beat Michele Di Gregorio one on one.
Lovric nearly got another soon after with two right-foot strikes from the edge of the area that Di Gregorio had to scramble across to fingertip around the base of the upright, while Lazar Samardzic also had a long-range effort charged down by Pablo Mari.
Marco Silvestri stuck out a foot to parry an Andrea Colpani strike at the near post and Monza equalised at the dawn of the second half when Carlos Augusto pulled back from the left for Colpani’s low volley from 10 yards.
They turned it around completely on the counter-attack after Mattia Valoti won back possession, Stefano Sensi rolling across from the right so Nicolò Rovella just had to sweep in from 12 yards for his first Serie A goal.
Andrea Petagna saw his angled drive flash just inches away from both the far post and Carlos Augusto who was sliding in, then Rovella should’ve done better with a header off target from Patrick Ciurria’s cross.
Di Gregorio rushed outside his penalty area to clear from Beto, while Petagna wasted another promising counter-attack.
In the final minute, Petagna clumsily bumped into Ilija Nestorovski, who had also taken a step backwards, and the referee awarded a penalty to Udinese. Beto sent Di Gregorio the wrong way to equalise.
Udinese 2-2 Monza
Lovric 18 (U), Colpani 48 (M), Rovella 56 (M), Beto pen 92 (U)
Player statistic
Sandi Lovric (Assist: Walace) |
18' | |||
26' | Armando Izzo |
48' | Andrea Colpani (Assist: Carlos Augusto) | |||
55' | Valentin Antov | |||
56' | Nicolò Rovella (Assist: Stefano Sensi) | |||
Nehuén Pérez | 76' | |||
Beto | 90+2' | |||
90+9' | Andrea Petagna |