Lazio survives late scare, beats Parma 2-1 to stay unbeaten atop Serie A

Lazio went up 2-0 in barely eight minutes of the second half and looked to have the afternoon under control, until Simone Lontani popped up deep into stoppage time to deliver one last scare. At the final whistle it was 2-1 for Gennaro Gattuso's side at the Stadio Olimpico, against a Parma team that left empty handed but at least got a goal to take some of the shine off the scoreline.

The first half had been a one-way parade of chances without a payoff. Lazio controlled possession from the opening whistle and piled up shots, with a Gustav Isaksen header crashing off the crossbar in the 23rd minute, but Parma held firm and even had a few sparks of its own, with David Romero and El Bilal Touré testing Christos Mandas. At the break it was 0-0, with the sense that the game was bound to break open sooner or later.

The stretch that decided it

And it broke open fast. Right at the start of the second half, in the 49th minute, Kenneth Taylor struck a left-footed shot from outside the box that snuck in low, right by the post, for the 1-0. Eight minutes later, in the 57th, Lazio doubled the lead in the strangest way possible: a rebound that ended up in Diego Carlos's own net made it 2-0 and seemed to settle the matter.

Parma tried to respond with substitutions from Alberto Gilardino, bringing on Simone Lontani, Matija Frigan and Giovanni Fabbian to look for something up front, and that gamble paid off in added time: with seven extra minutes signaled by the fourth official, Lontani struck in the 94th minute with a shot from distance and a tight angle, assisted by Fabbian, to make it 2-1 at the final whistle. There was no time left for anything more.

The numbers behind a rout that wasn't quite one

The stats make clear who carried the weight of the match, even if the final score ended up tighter than the dominance suggested.

Lazio completed more than double its rival's passes and created nearly three times as many shots, but that superiority didn't translate into a lopsided gap on target: 5 shots on goal for Lazio compared to Parma's 4. In terms of xG calculated after the fact from the match's shots, Lazio posted 1.67 against Parma's 0.96, an edge that confirms the home side's greater offensive weight without quite amounting to a rout in terms of chances created.

The preview had sketched out a script fairly close to what actually happened: our projection gave Lazio a 59% chance of winning, with a 28% chance of a draw and just 13% for a visiting win, with expected goals of 1.51 for the home side and 0.58 for the visitors. The final result, 2-1, ended up lining up pretty well with that forecast, though Lontani's stoppage time goal gave the scoreline a nervier edge than the first half's dominance would have suggested.

What it means in the standings

With this result, Lazio remains Serie A's leader with 22 points from 8 matches played, unbeaten in the competition with 7 wins and 1 draw. Parma, meanwhile, stays stuck near the bottom with just 4 points from 8 appearances, the product of 1 win, 1 draw and 6 losses. The gap between the two sides in the standings stands at 18 points, a chasm that Sunday's match reflected in terms of dominance, though not so much in the final score.