Two early goals from Genoa sent them on their way to an emphatic victory away at Cesena on Sunday afternoon in Serie A, at the Stadio Dino Manuzzi.
Alessandro Matri found the net after just five minutes to hand the away side an early advantage, before Luca Antonelli swiftly doubled the lead three minutes later.
Matri then missed from the penalty spot, but Nicolas Burdisso added the third just before half-time.
The win for Genoa pushes them to a lofty third place in the league standings for the time being, while Cesena are struggling as expected in 19th place.
This match didn’t even have time to settle into a passing or possession pattern before Genoa were a goal up. Matri latched onto a slide-rule pass through the middle to calmly send the goalkeeper the wrong way, passing the ball into the net for the lead.
Matri turned from scorer to provider just three minutes later, by instinctively backheeling a corner into the path of Antonelli, who turned home easily after the hard work had been done. Cesena already looked consigned to defeat at this point, and it became a question of how many goals Genoa could smash past their opponents.
It could have been an even better first-half for Matri had it not been for Cesena goalkeeper Nicola Leali, who produced an excellent save to deny the striker from a penalty. A goal would have made it 3-0 on the half-hour mark, confirming Genoa’s superiority.
However, the penalty save was just delaying the inevitable, which was another Genoa goal. Coming from a scrambled clearance, defender Burdisso rifled home a half-volley from outside the area which outfoxed the goalkeeper as the ball made its way through a sea of bodies.
On the hour mark, the statistics told the full tale of Genoa’s game. The away side had seven shots on target, compared to the home side’s zero. Genoa enjoyed 60% of the possession, and had triple the amount of corners with nine being swung into the danger area.
Cesena were handed a possible lifeline after 63 minutes when they were awarded a penalty. Emmanuel Cascione didn’t look confident before he struck the ball and only proceeded to hit the crossbar with Grifone goalkeeper Mattia Perin opting to stay in the middle of his goal.
A comeback for Cesena would have been extremely unlikely, but was made impossible after this further blow.
