MILAN (AP) — Christian Pulisic scored his first goal of the new Serie A season but could not prevent AC Milan from losing 2-1 at Parma on Saturday, leaving new coach Paulo Fonseca still waiting for his first win as manager.
Pulisic scored one of the easiest goals of his career in the 66th minute to cancel out Dennis Man’s second-minute opener, but substitute Matteo Cancellieri scored the decisive goal 11 minutes later to give Parma coach Fabio Pecchia a great birthday celebration.
Fonseca, who replaced Stefano Pioli during the off-season, still has a lot of work to do. Milan needed two late goals to salvage a 2-2 draw at home to Torino. the opening day.
It was the first time in 13 years that Milan failed to win one of their first two games of the season.
Inter Milan claimed their first win of the season with a 2-0 victory over Lecce. The defending champions drew 2-2 with Genoa in their first game last weekend.
Alvaro Morata scored on his debut but was out through injury and Milan got off to the worst possible start in Parma, falling behind within 90 seconds.
Man, who had scored a goal in Parma’s 1-1 draw with Fiorentina on Matchday 1, was completely undisturbed in the penalty area and was able to convert Emanuele Valeri’s cross into the goal.
Milan offered little until the cooling-off period in the middle of the first half. Shortly after the game resumed, Parma goalkeeper Zion Suzuki had to deflect a header from Strahinja Pavlovic onto the crossbar.
A few minutes later, Pavlovic headed a corner just past the near post.
The Milan debutant was also crucial at the other end, in his natural position, as the centre-back charged in and made a spectacular sliding tackle to prevent Man – who had been running free towards goal – from scoring an almost certain second goal.
The 23-year-old Pavlovic, who arrived from Salzburg at the end of last month, made another decisive tackle on Valentin Mihaila at the start of the second half.
This happened shortly after Tijjani Reijnders hit the crossbar for Milan.
Ange-Yoan Bonny thought he had doubled Parma’s lead after an hour, but the goal was disallowed for offside and Milan equalised shortly afterwards.
Rafael Leao danced down the left flank and played a one-two with Theo Hernandez before passing the ball to Pulisic, who only had to slot the ball into the empty net from five meters.
However, Parma were able to restore their lead with another devastating counterattack. Pontus Almqvist ran into the box from his own half and then rolled to Cancellieri, who fired into the bottom left corner.
No Lautaro, no problem
Inter took the win effortlessly, despite being without captain and star striker Lautaro Martinez.
Lautaro, who was the last Inter player to begin pre-season training after being involved in Argentina’s Copa America victory, was unable to play due to muscle fatigue.
Inter took an early lead through a fifth-minute header from Matteo Darmian and sealed the win with a 69th-minute penalty from Hakan Çalhanoğlu after Marcus Thuram – who scored twice last weekend – was brought down by Lecce defender Kialonda Gaspar.
Lazio loses
Lazio were one of only four teams to win last weekend, but suffered a surprise 2-1 defeat in their second game at Udinese, who were playing with a ten-man team.
Lorenzo Lucca gave Udinese the lead in the fifth minute when he headed in a cross from Florian Thauvin, who doubled his side’s lead early in the second half with a wonderful individual effort.
Udinese were forced to play with a man down for more than 20 minutes after Hassane Kamara was sent off after receiving a second yellow card. Gustav Isaksen scored a consolation goal for Lazio in injury time.
Genoa beat Monza 1-0.
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