The closing game of Serie A matchday 5 took place at the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino as the home side beat Lecce 1-0 with a lone goal from Nikola Vlasic. Il Toro had lost their last game against Atalanta and wanted to make up for it on their home ground.
The match was balanced in the first half. Torino went on the pitch with a front trio of Nikola Vlasic, Pietro Pellegri, and Nemanja Randonjic. However, they were far from the efficiency expected by their fans and coach Ivan Juric. Only Valentino Lazaro and Emirhan Ilkhan took the responsibility to attack.
Emirhan was in the starting line up for Torino for the first time as he also collected his first Serie A cap. The youngster performed well and completed many successful long passes.
Lecce’s game plan worked for a while as the Salentini attacked mostly on the left side of the pitch with Lameck Banda. He used his pace and dribbling skills and gave Kofi Djidji a hard time but struggled when it came to finishing with a goal.
Dutch center back Perr Schuurs shone in the Torino defense. He arrived in Turin this summer, but he acts and leads the defense like he has been there for longer.
Torino’s right-footed left wing-back, Mergim Vojvoda, didn’t appear in his attacking third as much as his teammate Valentino Lazaro but still managed to assist Nikola Vlasic to score the only game of the night on 40 minutes. Vojvoda took advantage of being reverse-footed and used his vision to make a remarkable assist.
With the starting of the second half, Lecce showed some hunger and sought more chances to score, yet they were unsuccessful. They put some pressure on the Granata in the initial 15 minutes, but then Torino managed to reverse the trend.
Il Toro were more organized in attack compared to the first half, but couldn’t add a second goal to their tally.
Both coaches made multiple substitutions in the second half as the best names from both teams were subbed off. For Torino, Emirhan and Schuurs left the pitch, while Banda, Assan Ceesay and Kristijan Bistrovic were replaced for Lecce.
The only spot-on change was between Pietro Pellegri and Antonio Sanabria among the Torino lines. Pellegri scored a goal on 72 minutes, but his effort was cancelled due to offside. Beside that, he was pretty much unnoticed on the pitch.
When Sanabria came in, he made his presence felt by delivering a spectacular assist to his teammate Vojvoda on 86 minutes. If only he scored, that would have been a brilliant assist.
Torino have now collected 10 points out of five games and are sitting fourth in the table (ahead of city rivals Juventus!). Games like the one they played against Lazio showed that Il Toro won’t be a easy piece this season.
Lecce, on the other hand, had a poor campaign start and collected only two points so far. The way things stand, it seems like the only way for the Salentini to maintain their top-flight status will be finding at least three teams worse than them…
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