Leccevs
MonzaThree goals in the first 21 minutes, eight saves from the Lecce goalkeeper, and a nervy final whistle. That's the short version of what happened at Via Del Mare on Sunday. The longer version is more fun.
Lecce came into this one without the ball — 39 percent possession by the end — and somehow won it anyway. Our pre-match read called it too close to split, and Lecce went ahead and settled it early.
The First Half-Hour Did the Damage
It took Lecce exactly three minutes to score. Ivan Ilic picked out Lassana Coulibaly, who put a header past the Monza keeper and set the tone immediately. Seven minutes later, Ilic did it again — this time finding Tiago Gabriel, another header, 2-0. Ilic was everywhere in those opening exchanges, and Lecce looked like a team that had a very specific plan and executed it before Monza could adjust.
Monza pushed back. They had the ball — they'd finish with 60 percent possession and 19 shots to Lecce's seven — but for a stretch it didn't matter. Then, in the 20th minute, Ricardo Mangas pulled one back off an assist from Samuele Birindelli, and suddenly the game had a pulse again. One minute later, Coulibaly got his second, assisted this time by Danilo Veiga. 3-1. Cabal, that was the moment the match died as a real contest — or so it seemed.
Konan N'Dri picked up a yellow card in the 38th minute, the only real blemish on an otherwise controlled first half for the hosts.
Monza Kept Coming, Lecce Kept Surviving
The second half was a different game. Monza had 11 shots on target across the full 90, and the Lecce goalkeeper earned every one of those eight saves. Lecce sat deep, gave up the ball, and made themselves hard to break down. For long stretches it worked. For long stretches it was uncomfortable.
Exequiel Zeballos made it 3-2 in the 89th minute — no assist recorded, just a late goal that gave the visitors a foothold they couldn't quite use. Danilo Veiga, the man who set up Coulibaly's third, saw yellow in stoppage time. Lecce held.
The numbers tell the story of how odd this win was: 323 passes to Monza's 493, seven shots to 19, four corners to six. Lecce were outplayed for large portions of this match and still walked away with the points. El chispudo de Coulibaly — two headed or close-range finishes, both at exactly the right moment — was the difference.
Monza will feel hard done by. Nineteen shots and a 60-percent share of the ball should produce more than two goals, and a side that's won just once in their last five will know they left something at Via Del Mare. For Lecce, the question now is whether they can repeat this kind of efficiency against better opposition — because they won't always have Ivan Ilic threading two perfect assists inside ten minutes to bail them out.
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