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·16 February 2024

Serie A | Torino 2-0 Lecce: Granata back to winning ways

Raoul Bellanova and Duvan Zapata gave Torino a much-needed boost with the 2-0 win over Lecce, who saw Marin Pongracic sent off.

The Granata were eager to reboot after back-to-back stalemates, but Adrien Tameze was suspended with Alessandro Buongiorno, Ricardo Rodriguez and Perr Schuurs injured, so into an emergency situation in defence. Valentin Gendrey returned from his ban for Lecce, but Lameck Banda was out.

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There was a huge scare after 13 minutes for the hosts, as Vanja Milinkovic-Savic fumbled a corner, Roberto Piccoli pounced from six yards and Adam Masina got back for the goal-line clearance.

Nobody was ready to meet the Ivan Ilic ball flashed across the face of goal from the left, while Duvan Zapata’s header hit Federico Baschirotto and Nikola Vlasic saw his strike deflected wide.

After the restart, Pontus Almqivst had his shot charged down inside the penalty area, but Torino opened the scoring.

Raoul Bellanova took a touch on the edge of the area before drilling the daisy-cutter into the far bottom corner with his right boot. It had been a counter-attack that the referee allowed to continue following a foul in midfield.

Mohamed Kaba should’ve equalised when sent through by a quickly-taken throw-in, but blasted wide of the near post.

Moments later, Lecce went down to 10 men, as Marin Pongracic received a second yellow card for going in late through the back of Samuele Ricci.

Torino thought they simply had to double their lead, only for Antonio Sanabria’s free header on an Ilic cross to be kept out by the remarkable Wladimiro Falcone reaction save.

Even down to 10 men, Lecce kept pushing and Piccoli saw his strike charged down after a corner, but Duvan Zapata made it 2-0 for the hosts with a trademark glancing header from a corner.

Milinkovic-Savic flew to pluck a Gallo curler out of the air, while David Okereke had the ball in the net during stoppages, but only after Karol Linetty had taken it out of play while robbing Touba.