Serie A | Udinese 1-2 Genoa: Impressive Grifone upset in Udine

Genoa snatched a surprise victory away to Udinese thanks to a Ruslan Malinovskyi penalty and Brooke Norton-Cuffy strike, allowing them to climb up to 15th place.

Both teams were coming off midweek Coppa Italia defeats with rotated squads. Arthur Atta and Hassane Kamara missed out for the hosts, with coach Kosta Runjaic sitting out a touchline ban. Leo Ostigard, Morten Frendrup, Benjamin Siegrist, Maxwel Cornet and Albert Gronbaek were injured for the visitors. Brooke Norton-Cuffy returned from suspension, with Junior Messias, Hugo Cuenca and Jean Onana back on the bench, as Genoa were unbeaten in Serie A since sacking Patrick Vieira, with two wins and as many draws.

Udinese had the ball in the net after nine minutes when the initial overhead kick from Jakub Piotrowski was charged down, then Keinan Davis turned in the rebound, but the offside flag went up. Moments later, the Friulani also lost Jordan Zemura to a muscular injury.

Jurgen Ekkelenkamp’s weak finish failed to trouble the goalkeeper, but Lorenzo Colombo pounced on a defensive error and was brought down by goalkeeper Maduka Okoye for a penalty, which Ruslan Malinovskyi converted successfully.

A long-range Rui Modesto scorcher was fingertipped over the bar, with Okoye doing the same at the other end on Vitinha’s curler after the restart.

Udinese defender Nicolò Bertola had a double chance on 51 minutes, as first Nicola Leali parried the control and volley at the near post, then on the resulting corner he thumped his finish onto the side-netting.

Piotrowski nodded a corner over from close range, but he did manage to draw level soon after. Patrizio Masini lost the ball to spark a counter-attack, then Rui Modesto rolled across from the left for Piotrowski to sweep first-time into the near top corner from 12 yards. It was his first goal in the Udinese shirt.

Colombo should’ve restored the Genoa lead with a diving header at the back post, but failed to make sufficient contact to surprise Okoye, while Zaniolo’s snapshot was straight at Leali.

Genoa surprised the Udinese defence with a well-worked move, as Caleb Ekuban got down the left and rolled across for Junior Messias, but he let it through for unmarked Norton-Cuffy to fire in at the back post.

It was wide open, moments later Buksa’s header looping just wide of the far top corner, while late on Sandi Lovric stung Leali’s gloves with a right-foot strike.

Malinovskyi pen 34 (G), Piotrowski 65 (U), Norton-Cuffy 83 (G)