La Liga is on spot-kick madness as David de Gea saves two penalties in Milan derby AC defeat Fiorentina On Sunday, Juventus slumped further behind Serie A leaders Napoli On a day of penalty drama.
Albert Gudmundsson got the decisive goal in the 73rd additional minute after an entertaining match in Florence, which saw three missed penalties. De Gea was the man of the night as he saved both Theo Hernandez and Tammy Abraham's penalties.
This loss deprived them of the ability to leap into the second place of the standings, ahead of Item Milan and Juventus. At the same time, Juventus stumbled to a draw against Cagliari which ended with a score of 1-1, thanks to the last-gasp penalty converted by Razvan Marin.
Milan defender Matteo Gabbia, who recently earned his first Italy call-up, reflected on the match: That is why I have to say that we failed to answer the question that we bear every time before or during a particular game, namely, why we lost our spirits and our performance on the field, and could not sustain the level of play for the full amount of time. Milan equalized on the scoreboard through the header of Christian Pulisic in the 60th minute but now they sit sixth, five points above Napoli.
Yacine Adli put Fiorentina in the lead in the 35 ^{th} minute after Mike Maignan saved the penalty that Moise Kean had attempted poorly from after a foul on Dodo. It was a tough night for Kean; he got personal goal attempts wrong, saw two goals by his teammates ruled offside, and hit the outside of the post during additional time. Nevertheless, for Gudmundsson, he also helped create the equalizer goal-scoring chance.
In Turin, Cagliari had come close to earning a valuable point and it would have been so had Marega not missed from the penalty spot in the first half. Marin had missed another penalty, in the 88th minute, after having been fouled by Douglas Luiz on Roberto Piccoli. Marin equalized the score from the penalty to make it 1-1 after Vlahovic had scored the tournament’s opening goal with a penalty in the 15th minute for Juventus. It was a setback to Juve who lost their clean sheet record in Serie A and are now only three points ahead of Napoli.
Even in stoppage time, Cagliari almost got the victory, and yet, as a free kick taken by Adam Obert, and the ball just scraped the woodwork. Juve was down to the equivalent of nine men when Francisco Conceicao was given his marching orders for a bad fake in the penalty area. Vlahovic also missed an opportunity in the 78th minute to clinch the match while Paul Pogba missed the match after CAS cut his doping ban down to 18 months. Juve’s sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli said the same thing and implied that Pogba might not have a future at the club stating, “We will decide after that”.
Juventus are now equal on points with Lazio who climbed to fourth place with their fourth straight win; 2-1 over Empoli.
In the meantime, Roma’s sporting director Florent Ghisolfi demanded that they be ‘respected’ after being awarded a late free-kick for a foul on Nicoletti which allowed Monza to equalize in the 1-1 draw. A foul that was committed by Georgios Kyriakopoulos on Tommaso Baldanzi in the 87th minute and looks similar to the foul committed by Douglas Luiz was not checked by the VAR and Roma was fumed. “It was a clear penalty. Why did VAR not intervene?” Ghisolfi asked.
In other matches, bottom-placed Bologna extended their stumbling home season under Vincenzo Italiano with a 0-0 stalemate against 10-man Parma.
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