Lautaro Martínez rode to Inter’s rescue as the Serie A champions fought back from 2-0 down to force a 2-2 draw at Roma, in a meeting of what had been the last two sides with 100% records. Manu Koné’s double had given Roma a 2-0 lead at half-time but for the second time in a week Cristian Chivu’s side, inspired by Martínez, showed mettle as the champions fought back from such a deficit. After the announcement earlier in the day of the death of Sandro Mazzola at the age of 83, both sides paid homage to the former Inter and Italy playmaker prior to kick-off, with the Nerazzurri also sporting black armbands.
Roma raced out of the blocks as Koné sent them ahead with less than six minutes on the clock when he readjusted his body well to rifle home Nahuel Molina’s knockdown. The champions had bounced back from being 2-0 down inside the opening 16 minutes at home to Udinese to emerge 5-3 winners on Monday. But Inter were not at the races for most of the opening period at the Stadio Olimpico as Paulo Dybala twice threatened to double the hosts’ advantage.
However, just as Inter slowly seemed to be waking up, Koné had the ball in the net again when he tucked in from close range at the back post on 37 minutes. His celebrations were initially cut short by the assistant’s flag before the video assistant referee intervened and, after a lengthy review, Davide Massa pointed to the centre circle as the 25-year-old skipped off in delight after notching the sixth Serie A goal of his career. Martínez halved the deficit less than a minute after the interval with a scuffed finish from Thuram’s pull-back that just crept perfectly into the side-netting of Mile Svilar’s far post.
Just as the match appeared to be petering out going into the final 10 minutes, a sudden goalmouth scramble saw Svilar make a sharp save before Martínez headed on to the bar under pressure. Inter, however, managed to recycle the ball and it came back to the Argentinian inside the box and this time he made no mistake as he controlled with his thigh and arrowed a finish past the Serb to ensure the spoils were shared. Lazio joined their city rivals Roma and Inter on 13 points after beating bottom-side Venezia, who remain pointless, 2-0.
A 51st-minute Mattia Zaccagni penalty, coupled with a Tijjani Noslin goal on the hour, was enough to earn Gennaro Gattuso’s team a fourth win from five outings. Paris FC extended their unbeaten start to the Ligue 1 campaign, beating Liam Rosenior’s old charges Strasbourg 2-1 in a match marred by abusive chants towards the Englishman from visiting fans. The game was halted in the second half as Rosenior was targeted by his former supporters.
There were also ugly scenes after the final whistle as Rosenior motioned to remonstrate with the away fans and had to be pulled away by his players. He said later: “A small section of the fans, and I want to stress that it was only a small section, because Strasbourg is a fantastic club, were disrespectful. So, for me, celebrating like that was obviously sending a message.
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