Monzavs
UdineseThe scoreline looked routine by the final whistle, but Udinese earned this 3-2 win at the U-Power Stadium in the messiest possible way — by scoring twice in the dying seconds of the first half and then holding on through a nervy second period that nearly slipped away from them.
For most of the opening half-hour, neither side gave much away. The stats at the end would show 421 passes for Monza, 420 for Udinese, possession split almost evenly — a match that felt, for a long stretch, like two teams feeling each other out.
Then it cracked open.
A First Half That Got Away From Monza
Jakub Piotrowski broke the deadlock in the 32nd minute, finishing off a move that Hassane Kamara had started. Monza answered quickly — Andrea Colpani leveled it in the 37th, set up by Ricardo Mangas — and the match seemed to be settling into something even and competitive.
What happened next was the kind of thing that decides games. Kamara, who had just assisted the opener, became the scorer himself right on the stroke of halftime. Then, in the third minute of added time, Jurgen Ekkelenkamp added a third. Two goals in the space of a few minutes, both before the break, and Monza walked into the locker room having been level and suddenly two down.
¡Ala gran púchica! — you could feel the air go out of the stadium in those moments. A game that had looked balanced for over half an hour had completely turned.
Monza's Response Wasn't Enough
Lorenzo Lucchesi picked up a yellow card just one minute into the second half, which did Monza no favors as they tried to push back into the match. They did get one back: Gustavo Varela headed home in the 63rd minute from a delivery by Ebenezer Akinsanmiro, and suddenly there was a game again.
But Udinese's three saves to Monza's two tells part of the story — the visitors were tested, and they held. Monza finished with 14 shots and five on target, so it wasn't a lack of trying. The problem was those eight minutes at the end of the first half, which had already done the damage.
Our pre-match read called this too close to split — and for most of the match, that looked right. Udinese settled it in the narrowest window.
Monza will feel the sting of this one. They had the ball, they had the chances, and they even had the equalizer at 1-1. The question now is whether that collapse before halftime is a pattern or an aberration — their form coming in read LLWLW, and this kind of concession late in a half is exactly the sort of thing that keeps a side stuck in the bottom half of the table. Udinese, for their part, will take the three points and not ask too many questions about how they got them.
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