Football

MILAN — Roma reject Marco Borriello hit a brace either side of half-time as Cagliari extended injury-hit Genoa’s run of consecutive defeats to five with a 4-1 romp on Sunday.

Genoa travelled to the Sant’Elia stadium in Sardinia looking for their first win since a shock 3-1 defeat of champions Juventus at the end of November.

And the visitors looked to be on their way when Giovanni Simeone, the son of Atletico Madrid coach Diego, produced a superb diving header to beat Rafael in the Cagliari net on the half hour.

But Genoa lost ’keeper Mattia Perin to a cruciate knee ligament injury last week and his stand-in, Eugenio Lamanna, was by the far the busier of the two ’keepers.

When Lamanna spilled a Panagiotis Tachtsidis drive from the edge of the area, Borriello was on hand to sidefoot the rebound home from six yards.

Borriello played for Genoa during three separate spells in what has been a well-travelled career, but there was no love lost between the pair.

Joaoa Pedro gave the hosts a 2-1 lead on the stroke of half-time after a clearance deflected off his leg to wrong-foot Lamanna, and Borriello had his second on the hour.

Lamanna could only parry Pedro’s powerful angled strike from the right and it fell to Borriello to beat the ’keeper with a bouncing shot from eight yards.

The ’keeper’s woes deepened only four minutes later when he was adjudged to have hauled down Nicolas Murri at his near post.

Diego Farias stepped up to wrong-foot him and seal a precious win for Cagliari which moved the Sardinians up five places to 10th, at 19 points behind Juventus.

Juventus, with a four-point lead over Roma, face Fiorentina away in Sunday’s late game although Roma can reduce the gap to a point with a win at Udinese if Juventus falter.

Elsewhere, Napoli, in third at seven points adrift, host struggling Pescara. — AFP