Coppa Italia Report: Delvecchio Punishes Brave Palermo
12/04/2003. AS Roma had an extremely hard time defeating Palermo in a first leg match of the Coppa Italia's third round on Thursday evening.
The Serie B side outplayed the Giallorossi for most of the ninety minutes, but were forced to leave the Olimpico as losers courtesy of a Marco Delvecchio first half strike.
Palermo immediately attacked the Serie A leaders and after only two minutes skimmed the post presided by AS Roma keeper and man of the match Carlo Zotti through a Codrea shot.
Then Nastase also came close to handing the visiting side the lead as his free-kick flew inches wide of the Roma net with Zotti looking.
The Roma lead came at the end of the first half when Panucci eluded the Sicilian's offside trap before shooting at goal. Palermo keeper Santoni effort by the Roma defender, but Delvecchio picked up the rebound and blasted Roma's lead hosaved the weak me.
The hosts were expected to do better in the second half, but this was when Palermo began dominating the game thanks to the great work of their midfielders who totally outclassed their off-form Roman counterparts.
Luckily Capello's side had Zotti in their net as the reserve keeper made three great saves on respective shots by Codrea, Mutarelli, and Brienza.
When the pink outfit where finally able to get past the Roma keeper thanks to a solo effort by Pepe, Panucci denied them the equalizer as he kicked the ball off the goal-line.
In the final part of the second half Palermo coach Baldini inserted his two best players, namely Toni and Corini, but despite their entrance allowed the visitors to push Roma even further inside their half of the pitch, Zotti was able to maintain his sheet clean.
Palermo will have the chance to turn the aggregate score in their favour when the two sides meet in Sicily in fourteen days time. |