March 01, (THEWILL) – Cremonese celebrated their first Serie A victory of the season after beating Roma 2-1, preventing Jose Mourinho’s side from climbing to joint second place with the Milan teams.
The Giallorossi were confident after their Europa League playoff win against RB Salzburg and fielded Gini Wijnaldum, who made his first start for the club since fracturing his tibia in August. However, Cremonese broke the deadlock early with a goal from Frank Tsadjout and secured a penalty when Rui Patricio brought down David Okereke. Daniel Ciofani converted the spot-kick, while Paulo Dybala missed a chance to equalize for Roma.
The win was a significant achievement for Cremonese, who had not won a single Serie A game despite knocking Napoli and Roma out of the Coppa Italia to reach the semi-finals. Roma was without Chris Smalling, who was suspended, and Tammy Abraham, who was still recovering from a cut that required stitches under his eye.
Despite the challenges, Cremonese put up a strong fight and went into halftime leading a Serie A match for the first time in 25 years. Mourinho got sent off for dissent early in the second half before Roma made a quadruple substitution to try and turn the game around but Cremonese continued to threaten on the counter, and that effort paid off with the Patricio penalty.
It was enough to see Cremonese secure their first Serie A win of the season, lifting them off the bottom of the table. They will face Sassuolo next in the League on Monday, while Roma take on Juventus the day before.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
