Serbia and Italy played out an entertaining 1-1 draw in a qualifier for the 2017 European Under-21 Championships.
A strange 47th minute Sergej Milinkovic-Savic strike was cancelled out nine minutes later by his Lazio team-mate Danilo Cataldi’s second goal for the U-21 side.
The first real chance of the match came eight minutes in with Kingsley Boateng playing Domenico Berardi through on goal but the Sassuolo man’s effort finished disappointingly wide from a promising position.
Alberto Cerri and Rolando Mandragora both saw efforts blocked in front of goal before Boateng’s tight-angle effort went just wide of the near post.
The 32nd minute saw Serbia’s first chance of the match when an Ognjen Ozegovic bicycle kick ballooned over the bar.
The Serbians seemed to be waking up and Alessio Cragno was required to make a save on a Milinkovic-Savic header from an outswinging corner from the right.
Serbia came out of the halftime tunnel much like how they went into it, on the front foot and opened the scoring two minutes into the second half. What appeared to be a cross from Milinkovic-Savic down the right seemed to fool Cragno in the Italy goal and could not get a strong enough hand to the ball to keep it out of the net.
Italy should have equalized on the counter attack in the 54th minute after captain Marco Benassi squared the ball to an open Cerri who could only blast over from ten yards with half the net gaping.
Luigi Di Biagio’s men did not rue the miss, however, as they equalized through Cataldi. Berardi’s corner came back out to the Lazio midfielder whose effort from just outside the box flashed past the outstretched arm of Boris Radunovic.
The Azzurrini’s tails were up once again and nearly took the lead two minutes later. A lovely Cerri dummy left the ball for Boateng who promptly played Cerri through but the Juventus-owned forward’s tantalizing low cross went untouched across the face of goal.
Serbia came close in the 61st minute. Cragno swatted a Milinkovic-Savic cross into the feet of Milan Gajic whose goal-bound effort was saved off the line by Daniele Rugani.
In an otherwise open match, the two defences were able to buckle down with the sides settling for a share of the spoils.
The two teams remain locked on 10 points at the top of Group 2, with both teams playing four games.
