Donyell Malen hit a hat-trick as Roma revived their fading European hopes by crusing past Serie A’s bottom club Pisa 3-0 on Friday.<\/p>\n
Roma, thrashed by runaway leaders Inter Milan in the last round, regained ground in the race for a top four place.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“We had a great reaction, and it wasn’t easy because the second half in Milan was very disappointing,” said Roma coach Gian Piero Gasperini.<\/p>\n
His team moved level with Juventus, who are fifth, and one point behind Como in fourth. Como host Inter on Sunday. Juventus visit seventh place Atalanta on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“We’re still there, and now we should be rooting for Atalanta and Inter. We’re giving it our all to reach the Champions League,” said Gasperini.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Pisa remained anchored to the foot of the table.<\/p>\n
Malen scored with all three of host Roma’s shots on goals as he took his total to 10 in 12 Serie A appearances since joining on loan \u00a0from Aston Villa in January.<\/p>\n
In the third minute, two visiting players had a chance to intercept a Roma punt forward but Antonio Caracciolo could only knee the ball into Malen’s pass.<\/p>\n
The Dutch attacker sidestepped one more defender before firing home. <\/p>\n
“Serie A matches are never easy, they become so if you break the deadlock after three minutes,” said Gasperini.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Lorenzo Pellegrini hit the angle of post and bar with a free kick before helping set up Malen’s second in the 43rd minute.<\/p>\n
After Pisa repeatedly failed to clear, Devyne Rensch, who has yet to score in Serie A, picked up a loose ball in the box, played a one-two with Pellegrini and then poked\u00a0a pass to Malen who rolled in from close range.<\/p>\n
Malen completed his hat-trick after 51 minutes running onto a through pass from Matias Soule, turning away from two defenders and driving the ball home.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“He’s incredibly valuable,” said Gasperini of Malen.<\/p>\n
“But if you play for Borussia Dortmund and in the Premier League as a young player, you’re bound to have significant resources.<\/p>\n
“The central striker role was the key to convincing him to come to Roma.”<\/p>\n
pb\/bsp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donyell Malen hit a hat-trick as Roma revived their fading European hopes by crusing past Serie A’s bottom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4509,3992,414,416,1749,1383,1386,1377,119,170,1793,2543,43,27,239],"class_list":{"0":"post-5930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rome","8":"tag-antonio-caracciolo","9":"tag-aston-villa","10":"tag-atalanta","11":"tag-borussia-dortmund","12":"tag-como","13":"tag-devyne-rensch","14":"tag-donyell-malen","15":"tag-gian-piero-gasperini","16":"tag-inter-milan","17":"tag-juventus","18":"tag-lorenzo-pellegrini","19":"tag-pisa","20":"tag-roma","21":"tag-rome","22":"tag-serie-a"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}