Serie A

Football Italia

·19 April 2024

Serie A | Genoa 0-1 Lazio: Luis Alberto decisive

Just days after declaring he wanted a contract termination, Luis Alberto scored the only goal for Lazio’s big victory away to Genoa, keeping them in the European race.

The Grifone missed Junior Messias, Ruslan Malinovskyi, Mattia Bani and Alan Matturro, but Mateo Retegui returned to the starting XI with Albert Gudmundsson in a deeper role. Ciro Immobile, Mattia Zaccagni, Matteo Guendouzi and Ivan Provedel didn’t make the trip, though it was the first match since Felipe Anderson signed for Palmeiras and Luis Alberto publicly requested a transfer.

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Caleb Ekuban hit the side-netting after cutting inside from the right, then Retegui fired over from the edge of the area following a Gudmundsson back-heel flick.

Alessandro Vogliacco charged down the Manuel Lazzari strike, with Mario Gila’s follow-up off target, and an acrobatic Ekuban scissor-kick volley was straight at Christos Mandas.

Lazio lost Lazzari to a calf injury and there was a scare when playing out from the back as Retegui tried to catch Mandas off his line, turning the lob off target from midfield.

Genoa really should’ve taken the lead on the stroke of half-time during a three against one counter-attack, but Ekuban got greedy and smashed the angled drive across the face of goal to skim the far post rather than pass to his teammates.

Josip Martinez got down to fingertip the Luis Alberto snooker shot round the base of the upright, then Koni De Winter was rescued after a slip by Aaron Martin, who flung himself in the way of the Felipe Anderson strike in a goal-saving block.

Lazio were building pressure and took the lead with a well-worked move. Felipe Anderson’s through ball sent Daichi Kamada to the by-line, his pull-back was let through by the Adam Marusic dummy and allowed Luis Alberto to sweep home from eight yards. The midfielder, who was stripped of the vice-captain’s role after announcing he wanted to terminate his contract this summer, celebrated by pointing to the club badge on his shirt.