Rome, October 19: Ronaldinho inspired AC Milan to only their third win of the season with a come-from-behind 2-1 success against AS Roma at the San Siro on Sunday.
While the first half in Milan belonged to Roma’s French winger Jeremy Menez, it was Ronaldinho who starred after the break, scoring one and creating the other – and quite possibly saving countryman Leonardo’s job as coach.
The result moved Milan up to eighth in the Serie A table with Roma dropping to 11th.
And yet Roma, and Menez in particular, tore Milan apart in the first half.
But it was with a helping hand from Milan centre-back Thiago Silva that the visitors went in front as Menez pounced on his fluffed back pass on three minutes and shrugged off the Brazilian’s shirt pulling before sending goalkeeper Dida the wrong way.
A minute later Menez surged into the box again but this time his angle was more difficult and he shot straight at Dida.
But on 20 minutes he was in behind the defence a third time, however under pressure from Silva he shot wide as he fell.
Moments later Daniele De Rossi drove forward unchallenegd from midfield and brought a fine one-handed stop out of Dida.
Menez burst into life again on 38 minutes as he teed up Mirko Vucinic, whose first touch was sublime to take him past Alessandro Nesta but he then hesitated and Dida blocked his weak shot.
Finally Milan created something on the counter-attack a minute later and Roma goalkeeper Doni had to tip a shot from Clarence Seedorf onto the post after the Dutchman benefitted from a fortunate ricochet in the box.
Leonardo had to react and he did by bringing on evergreen striker Filippo Inzaghi for midfielder Ignazio Abate and within two minutes Inzaghi’s header from an Andrea Pirlo corner had been cleared off the line by David Pizarro.
Milan needed a helping hand to get back into the match and they got it from the referee with a highly contentious penalty award after Nesta crumbled under Nicolas Burdisso’s challenge in the box.
Burdisso got the ball, even if his challenge was rambunctious, but Ronaldinho despatched the penalty on 56 minutes to add insult to injury.
And the winner came from a moment of quality on 67 minutes as Ronaldinho’s long diagonal ball found Pato, whose control on his chest was sublime and took John Arne Riise out of play before he rounded Doni and slotted home.
Roma should still have got a draw but De Rossi blazed over the bar from 10 yards late on.
Meanwhile, Sampdoria lost ground on Inter Milan at the top when they were held to a 1-1 draw at Lazio, in a game where both teams finished with 10 men.
Champions Inter lead Sampdoria by two points having humbled Genoa 5-0 on Saturday while Juventus and Fiorentina, who drew 1-1 in Turin, are a further two points behind.
Sampdoria needed a win to join Inter on 19 points at the top but despite taking the lead through Giampaolo Pazzini, they were pegged back by a goal from Francesco Matuzalem.
But Sampdoria coach Luigi Delneri was furious that two penalty appeals in the last five minutes were turned down, the first when Fernando Muslera came out and punched Pazzini in the head after the striker beat him to the ball and the second when Mobido Diakite barged Reto Ziegler.
Pazzini was taken to hospital and onfield TV pictures seemed to show he had a broken nose.
“The only one not to see the penalty on Pazzini was the referee,” fumed Delneri. “Pazzini took a hell of a knock and to make matters worse he could be out for a month.
“Also the one by Diakite on Ziegler at the end was clear, just as was the one we weren’t given against Parma.
“It seems we’re being penalised by referees. We deserve more respect than that.”
Promoted Parma moved up to fifth after Bulgarian forward Valeri Bojinov scored the only goal of the game at home to Siena.
Walter Mazzarri’s first game in charge of Napoli ended in victory after Cristian Maggio struck in injury time to sink Bologna 2-1.
Catania and Atalanta recorded their first victories of the season, respectively 2-1 at home to Cagliari and 3-1 at Udinese.
—Agencies