Venezia completed an extraordinary turnaround from 2-0 down to beat high-flying Udinese 3-2 with a pair of Joel Pohjanpalo penalties, but Isaak Toure’s red card proved costly.
This was a local Friuli-Venezia-Giulia derby on the Laguna and the hosts finally ended their dismal run of results with a 2-2 draw at Monza, but Sverko was not fully fit. The Friulani were still missing Florian Thauvin, Alexis Sanchez, Thomas Kristensen, Gerard Deulofeu, Jurgen Ekkelenkamp and Arthur Atta.
See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.
Sandi Lovric tested Filip Stankovic at the near post after a nutmeg, while John Yeboah failed to make the most of a terrible Jesper Karlstrom back-pass.
Udinese broke the deadlock when Lovric surged forward from midfield, combined with Iker Bravo and swept in with the inside of the boot from the edge of the area.
They grabbed another a few minutes later, as Jaka Bijol intercepted the poor Stankovic clearance and Iker Bravo drilled through a defender’s legs into the near bottom corner. It was the young Spaniard’s debut Serie A goal.
It was nearly 3-0 within 120 seconds of that, as Stankovic got down for a strong one-handed save on Lorenzo Lucca’s strike.
Venezia received a penalty when Joel Pohjanpalo ran onto the Alfred Duncan through ball and was ready to shoot as he was bundled over by Lautaro Giannetti. The Lagunari veteran converted it himself, having previously missed his only other Serie A spot-kick.
Iker Bravo nodded wide from Hassane Kamara’s cross, but Gaetano Oristanio came on for the second half and immediately set up Duncan to steer wide from a very promising position.
Oristanio was brought down by Isaak Toure right on the edge of the penalty area, so Udinese were reduced to 10 men. Venezia took advantage immediately, as Hans Nicolussi Caviglia bent the resulting free kick around the wall into the far bottom corner to equalise.
The hosts poured forward, Maduka Okoye with a strong hand on the Gianluca Busio strike and Pohjanpalo sliding in just a second too late to meet the Ellertsson cross at the far stick.
Christian Kabasele came sliding in to charge down the Duncan effort, but he did it with his arm, so Venezia received their second penalty of the match. Pohjanpalo fired it into the same bottom corner as the first, but this time Okoye was left stranded to complete the turnaround from 0-2 to 3-2.
Venezia 3-2 Udinese
Lovric 19 (U), Iker Bravo 25 (U), Pohjanpalo pens 41, 86 (V), Nicolussi Caviglia 56 (V)
Sent off: Toure 53 (U)
