Cornelius achieved a remarkable accomplishment by completing the second hat-trick of his season past Genoa, as Parma defeated Marassi 4-1. The Grifone had greatly strengthened under Davide Nicola, their third coach of the season, but there was concern about a three-month break due to the pandemic weakening their momentum.
For the remainder of the season, Ivan Radovanovic will lose out on injuries when Roberto Inglese and Giuseppe Pezzella were missing Parma. The Ducati had a promising start, but the messy early push was not rounded off by all Gervinho, Andreas Cornelius, and Dejan Kulusevski. Gervinho was supposed to have scored 13 minutes when he was struck by a ball but his touch was poor and he prodded it wide.
Mattia Perin made a brilliant save to prevent Cornelius from making an acrobatic effort, but on the reverse, Genoa saw their shot charged by Simone Iacoponi for a goal. Cornelius ended his second hat-trick of the season against Genoa with a leaping header bouncing off Laurini ‘s pass in the far bottom corner. Six of his 11 Series A goals have come amazingly past Genoa this season.
Dejan Kulusevski stole a fourth for Parma, bringing two defensive players to the field and freeing up space in the near-bottom corner for drilling. This would have been five but Perin saved a Jasmin Kurtic counter with the final kick of the game.
In six-pointer relegation, Torino finally ended their winless streak with Udinese but had to fight in numbers after Andrea Belotti ‘s shot.
The Friulani started offensively, Jens Stryger-Larsen ‘s ball heading into the six-yard box with nobody in a position to finish off. Sadly, when Stryger-Larsen redirected a Rodrigo De Paul pass from the point-blank range to the upright, he could not score the opener.
Salvatore Sirigu saved brilliantly to stop Seko Fofana’s equalizer when the volley from outside the box was always on the go.
Torino got annoyed with the referee after 29 minutes. The official blew the whistle when the two Udinese players appeared to clash with a non-existent Simone Zaza foul, and when Simone Edera put the ball in the goal, it couldn’t register or use VAR as the action had been halted.
Sebastien De Maio tested Sirigu with a header in the corner but after a weak ankle sprain Udinese missed Rolando Mandragora and he was taken off in obvious pain. Udinese started taking control of the second half, pinning Torino back more and more but, the hosts were holding on and stiffly defending to reduce chances.
Belotti ‘s touch let him down on a counter-attack by Alex Berenguer, prompting Musso to smother, and charging off a few desperate numbers protecting Fofana ‘s shot. Rodrigo De Paul was booked to make it worse for Udinese and would miss the match at Atalanta. It was a struggle through five minutes of stoppages, with only Musso going up for two different set plays, but Torino clung on for their first victory in seven.
