Roberto Vitiello struck two minutes from time to deny AS Roma coach Luis Enrique a first victory in five outings as AC Siena snatched a 1-1 draw in the capital on Thursday.
Roma had led through Daniel Osvaldo’s first-half strike, but having failed to turn possession into pressure, they were hit with a late blow.
The result means neither side have yet won a match this season, but it took them both above champions AC Milan, who now sit just two places above the relegation zone, where city rivals Inter find themselves.
Photo: Reuters
The final whistle was met with a cacophony of jeers from disgruntled home fans.
Enrique admitted he was concerned about his team’s results.
“The assessment cannot be positive because of the result, but the team did everything we expected in terms of our game plan,” he said. “However, we didn’t take enough risks to finish off our chances. Siena played very well in the second half, while we struggled to move the ball around and create chances. There isn’t a specific problem that worries me, everything worries me.”
Roma started by seeing a lot of the ball without creating anything, while Siena repeatedly looked dangerous on the counterattack.
Inside the first quarter of an hour, Emanuele Calaio had a shot deflected behind off Simon Kjaer, while Franco Brienza’s header from Angelo’s cross was brilliant tipped away by Bogdan Lobont.
Yet the hosts went in front on 25 minutes when Jose Angel crossed from the left and Marco Borriello took the ball to the byline, before firing it across goal where Osvaldo was waiting at the back stick for a simple tap-in.
However, it was still Siena who looked the more likely to score as Calaio dragged a shot just beyond the far post.
In the second period, a stinging shot from Osvaldo brought Zeljko Brkic into action to punch the ball clear.
Midway through the period, Francesco Totti got his weight behind a free-kick, but Brkic got down to save comfortably.
Kjaer then came to Roma’s rescue as he spread his body on the line to block a Pablo Gonzalez header from close range after Calaio headed the ball back into the danger zone.
Miralem Pjanic set his sights from distance for the hosts, but fired just beyond the angle of post and crossbar.
Then came Siena’s sucker punch two minutes from time when Brienza’s speculative effort crashed back off the post and Vitiello was on hand to side-foot home the rebound for a deserved equalizer, the club’s first goal this season.
Osvaldo had a late chance at a winner, but he headed wide.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier