Varese have reached the Serie B promotion play-off final after securing a 1-1 draw away to Hellas Verona.
The first leg of the semi-final ended 2-0 for Varese, so they would get through with a draw in this match.
Varese have reached the Serie B promotion play-off final after securing a 1-1 draw away to Hellas Verona.
The first leg of the semi-final ended 2-0 for Varese, so they would get through with a draw in this match.
Juanito Gomez tested the goalkeeper early on, but it was Panagiotis Tachtsidis who opened the scoring for Verona after 20 minutes. He rose to nod an Emil Hallfredsson free kick into the top corner.
It was almost an equaliser moments later, as Nadarevic’s screamer was palmed out from under the bar by Rafael.
The two duelled again before the break with the goalkeeper parrying from point-blank range, while Pablo Granoche fired straight at Rafael on the counter rather than passing to an unmarked Emmanuel Rivas.
A Jasmin Kurtic free kick hit the side-netting and Nicola Ferrari had penalty appeals for a Magnus Troest sliding tackle on the hour mark.
Both sides went very close with Domenico Maietta’s pull-back to Inacio Gomez intercepted and Giampietro Zecchin forcing a desperate save out of Rafael.
Varese did get their equaliser on 77 minutes with Christian Terlizzi getting his head to a corner, just as he had in the first leg.
Rafael again denied Zecchin, but Luca Ceccarelli saw red late on for a mistimed tackle.
The other semi-final is this evening between Sassuolo” data-scaytid=”49″>Sassuolo and Sampdoria” data-scaytid=”50″>Sampdoria.
Verona 1-1 Varese
Scorers: Tachtsidis 20 (Ve), Terlizzi 77 (Va)
Sent off: Ceccarelli 84 (Ve)