MILAN (AP) — Lazio caused its own downfall as two mistakes saw the hosts beaten 2-1 by Hellas Verona in Serie A on Saturday.
Manuel Lazzari scored an own-goal and Lazio gifted Adrien Tameze the winner in Rome. Felipe Caicedo had equalized for the capital side early in the second half.
“We knew that Hellas would create problems for us, the team gave everything but unfortunately we paid dearly for our errors,” Lazio coach Simone Inzaghi said. “We gave them the two goals all on our own. We certainly didn’t deserve to lose.
“In three days we will be back on the field, we have to pick ourselves back up ... With more players available certainly more balls would have gone in. But that’s soccer, we should know that and go forward. The Champions League has taken a lot out of us in Serie A.”
Lazio was riding a wave of enthusiasm after reaching the knockout stage of the Champions League for the first time in 20 years.
It was Verona’s first victory over Lazio since 2013 and saw it leapfrog two points above its opponent into sixth spot. Verona is a point below fourth spot ahead of the rest of the weekend’s action.
“We had a good game, we put in a lot of effort,” Verona coach Ivan Jurić said. “We could have also scored more if we had been more clinical.
“But Lazio seemed a bit tired, maybe because of their efforts in the Champions League.”
Lazio was missing a number of players through injury and key defender Francesco Acerbi -- who had played every minute of this season previously -- had to go off in the first half with a thigh problem.
Lazio gifted Verona the lead on the stroke of halftime as Davide Faraoni crossed from the right and Federico Dimarco’s volley looked to be going wide until midfielder Lazzari turned it into his own net.
Lazzari atoned for his error 11 minutes after the break with a cross from the right which Caicedo did brilliantly to gather with his back to goal. He fired into the bottom left corner with a swiveling shot as he appeared to instinctively know where the goal was.
But Lazio shot itself in the foot again in the 65th. Ștefan Radu’s shocking back pass was woefully short and Tameze pounced on it to go round Lazio goalkeeper Pepe Reina and deposit the ball into an empty net.
FIRST WIN
Last-place Crotone recorded its first win of the season with an emphatic 4-1 victory against Spezia.
Both sides were promoted last season. Spezia went into the game with 10 points but Crotone had just two from 10 matches and was the only team in the Italian league yet to win a game.
Crotone hadn’t even scored in its last four matches but Junior Messias broke its goal drought in the seventh minute following a rapid counterattack.
A mistake by Crotone midfielder Niccoló Zanellato led to Diego Farias scoring the equalizer 11 minutes later for the visitors.
However, Crotone started the second half aggressively and Arkadiusz Reca and Eduardo Henrique netted shortly after the interval.
Messias doubled his tally in stoppage time.
Crotone remained bottom, four points from safety. It is a point below Genoa and Torino.
UNWANTED RECORD
Torino lost 3-2 at home to Udinese and equaled its club record of eight straight Serie A home games without victory, set in 1959.
Two goals in a minute from Andrea Belotti and Federico Bonazzoli leveled it for Torino after Ignacio Pussetto and Rodrigo De Paul had put Udinese 2-0 ahead.
But Torino was on level terms for just two minutes before Ilija Nestorovski scored what was to prove the winner in the 69th.
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