Hellas Verona drew 2-2 with Genoa at Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi on Wednesday night in Serie A.
A brace from Alessandro Matri gave the away side a 2-0 lead but Verona fought back to draw through goals from Panagiotis Tachtsidis and Artur Ionita.
The first real chance of the game came early on, when Matri found himself on his own in the box but he scuffed his shot straight at the keeper.
It was the away side that were having the better of the early exchanges and they had another opportunity when but shot was well over the bar.
Matri was involved in the action again five minutes later when he was played in by Stefano Sturaro and his delicate chip hit the bar but he was offside anyway.
There was a controversial moment just after the 20 minute mark, when Sturaro managed to outpace Tachtsidis and was bundled to the ground by the Greek midfielder but the referee decided that it wasn’t a penalty kick.
There was action at the other end two minutes later when a ball aimed for the head of Luca Toni bounced through to debutant Javier Saviola, who stretched to make contact but Mattia Perin somehow managed to turn it over the bar.
Matri was in the thick of the action once again, when, after being found on the wing, cut inside and curled his shot towards goal but Pierluigi Gollini managed to tip over the bar.
Toni made his first real impression on the game, when he held up the ball and terrifically poked it through to Ionita but his shot was saved at the near post by Perin.
An action packed first half finally saw a goal in the 34th minute, with Genoa going ahead through the much involved Matri.
Giovanni Marchese whipped in a terrific cross and a powerful header from Matri came off the inside of the post and in to give the Italians the lead.
Just after the half hour, Perin made a fantastic double save, first from Saviola, who was played through by Tachtsidis and after parrying that away, he managed to stop an almost certain goal from Ionita from the rebound with his knee, which was the final real opportunity of a thrilling first half.
It went from bad to worse for Gialloblu within two minutes of the restart, when veteran defender Rafael Marquez was dispossessed by Matri, who managed to bundle his way through towards goal and slide the ball into the bottom corner to give the visitors a two goal lead.
This seemed to be a wake up call for Verona and they hit straight back just three minutes later, when the ball was cut back to Tachtsidis, who sidefooted home to make it 2-1, despite Perin managing to get a hand to it.
A terrific last ditch tackle from Rognuila then stopped Toni from scoring a tap in after a great ball in in the 59th minute and the momentum seemed to be with the home side.
That eventually paid off five minutes later, when Toni managed to dig out a cross and find Ionita, who made no mistake from 12 yards out and headed home to level the game.
As the game wore on, Verona pushed for the victory and Genoa’s threat came on the counter, which almost resulted in them snatching a winner when Sturaro was played through and went around the keeper but hit the ball into the side netting after seemingly thinking he was offside.
Both teams pushed for a winner but it wasn’t to be and both had to settle for a point at the end of play.
