It was a tale of two Zapatas on Sunday as Duvan punished his namesake Cristian’s error to fire Sampdoria past a disjointed AC Milan side 2-0.
The Rossoneri turned in a subpar showing and were deservedly punished for it when Duvan Zapata pounced on his compatriot’s costly mistake in the closing stages as his side continued their unbeaten start to the season, with substitute Ricky Alvarez adding the extras in injury time.
It took just two minutes of the contest for Serie A’s polarising new VAR system to be heavily involved as referee Paolo Valeri awarded the hosts a penalty for a Franck Kessie handball, which was quickly and rightly overturned.
The remainder of the half had few chances, Zapata going closest by twice testing Gianluigi Donnarumma from close range, and was marred by continual sloppiness in possession from the visiting side in particular.
A lack of chances and goals was perhaps no great surprise though from a fixture which has been decided by a solitary goal on each of the last three occasions but Milan’s lack of creativity was a concern for Vincenzo Montella, having watched his side attempt the most shots in Serie A across the first five games along with Napoli.
The second 45 minutes followed a rather similar pattern, with spark lacking for both sides, taking 18 minutes for the first shot on target to arrive and when it did, Donnarumma easily saved Dennis Praet’s tame strike.
Nikola Kalinic blazed over at the other end shortly afterwards as Milan probed to find a way to prevent them drawing a blank at Sampdoria for only the second time in their last 17 visits to the Stadio Luigi Ferraris.
The fixture’s decisive moment arrived on 72 minutes when a ball into the Diavolo penalty area caused all sorts of problems and resulted in Cristian Zapata inexplicably heading across his own six-yard box to tee up his namesake Duvan to thrash home from close range.
gol Zapata dr asissts Zapata
uhhhh pic.twitter.com/iGOHWU9BuS
— I'M SATUMILANISTI (@infomilan1899) September 24, 2017
Although Milan rarely looked like threatening an equaliser, the result was put beyond all doubt in the first minute of injury time when Alvarez, in his first involvement in the game from the bench, skipped into the box on the left and drilled his effort in via the upright to spark the celebrations.
La cosa più bella che ricky alvarez ha fatto per l’Inter#SampdoriaMilan #Alvarez pic.twitter.com/S73nNIJMXu
— Marco?????? (@maistatoinb90) September 24, 2017
As a result of the victory for Marco Giampaolo’s men, the unbeaten Blucerhicati now move to within a point of Milan, who currently occupy fifth place in the table.
