Hellas Verona succumbed to a frustrating 1-0 defeat to Udinese at the Stadio Bentegodi on Sunday in Serie A.
A hard-fought match in an electric atmosphere was eventually settled by a 62nd minute goal from Antonio Di Natale.
The visitors started the game brightly and were intent on keeping the ball as they played insistently with their patient style of play.
This slow build up very nearly paid dividends in the fifth minute when former Chievo man Cyril Thereau found the back of the net with a close-range effort, although his strike was consequently ruled out due to a correct offside decision.
As the first half progressed, Verona continued to sit back and relied mostly on the counter-attack, with their first real chance of the match only coming in the 14th minute when Pangiotis Tachtsidis’s long-range strike deflected off the cross-bar. .
The home side came close once again in the 25th minute when the returning Bosko Jankovic displayed his excellent solo ability. The Serbian initially picked up the ball on the left hand flank and skipped past his static opponent, although his resulting shot found it’s way inches over the Udinese cross-bar.
As the first half drew to an end, the Verona crowd were certain that they had taken the lead when they saw the Udinese net ripple, however a close-range strike from Nicolas Lopez [on loan from Udinese] was inches off target and could only find the side netting.
Following this late scare, Udinese began the second half well and should really have taken the lead in the opening minutes. Theareu was once again at the fore-front as he used his pace well to break away from the Verona defence, although his resulting shot was timid and aimed it straight at Francesco Benussi.
As the pace of the match sped up, both sides began to attack with more frequency and after 61 minutes the game finally saw its first goal following a sequence of lively events. The first being that Jacopo Sala was awarded a [perhaps harsh] straight red card with a rash tackle in the 60th minute.
It was only seconds after this decision that the Zebrette took the lead thanks to their all time top-scorer Antonio Di Natale. The 37-year-old had only been on the pitch for 3 minutes when he met an enticing cross from the right hand-side and flicked the ball intelligently into an open net.
Still reeling from this double set-back, Udinese continued to surge forwards and came close to doubling their lead in the 71st minute, however Thereau’s long-range strike was unable to beat the wood-work.
After a dangerous 10 minute spell in which they could have conceded more, Verona were finally able to regain a grip on the match and came close to an equaliser in the 85th minute when the experienced Rafael Marquez struck a well-taken free kick which was kept out thanks to an athletic save from Orestis Karnezis.
As the game petered out, the Gialloblu pushed hard in search of an equaliser, however after a red card for Marquez in the 90th minute, they had to settle for a 1-0 defeat.
