Como produced a stunning late turnaround in Turin on Tuesday night, scoring three times in the final 11 minutes to beat Torino 3-1, with Nico Paz setting up the equaliser and heading the winner himself as Cesc Fabregas' side moved fourth in Serie A.
For almost an hour this looked like being Torino's night. The hosts had won their previous three league games and led through Che Adams in the 24th minute, and even as Como dominated the ball — finishing with 72 per cent possession — the equaliser would not come. Then, in a frantic closing stretch, Jacobo Ramon, Paz and substitute Martin Baturina all scored to complete one of the comebacks of the Serie A season so far, as reported by Football Italia.
Adams Punishes a Como Mistake
Como started brightly, with Tasos Douvikas having an early finish ruled offside and the visitors seeing strong penalty appeals waved away when Lucas Da Cunha was caught on the ankle in the box. But Torino struck first against the run of play. Kian Fitz-Jim robbed Ramon as Como tried to play out from the back and rolled the ball across for Adams to turn in first time from eight yards, according to the match report carried by LaPresse.
Torino could have made it worse for the visitors. Nikola Vlasic stung the gloves of Robert Sanchez, Giovanni Simeone saw a bullet header palmed onto the crossbar, and at the other end Maxence Caqueret smashed Como's best chance of the first hour against the bar from a tight angle. Baturina then saw a cross-shot bounce off the top of the crossbar as Fabregas' side kept knocking on the door without breaking it down.
Three Goals in Eleven Minutes
The breakthrough finally arrived on 81 minutes. Paz swung a cross to the back post and Ramon, making up for his earlier error, met it with a cushioned header from close range to level the scores. Como were not settling for a point. Paz drilled one effort inches wide, then rose to head in Yan Couto's cross from the right on 87 minutes to put the visitors in front.
Torino crumbled. In the second minute of added time Baturina, on since the 58th minute, harassed a tired Vlasic into a mistake on the edge of his own area, shrugged off the challenge and swept the ball past Lucas Perri from 10 yards to seal a 3-1 win. It was a direct reward for Fabregas' changes, on a night when fellow substitute Jayden Addai lasted only 20 minutes before asking to come off with a suspected muscular problem.
Fabregas framed the result as a sign of how far this team has come, saying, in comments reported after the game: "Last year we wouldn't have won it." Coming four days after Como's 2-0 win over Sassuolo, it is hard to argue with him.
So What Does It Mean?
Como are now fourth in Serie A with 20 points from nine matches — six wins, two draws and just one defeat — sitting in the Champions League places and five points behind leaders Lazio. For a club that was playing second-tier football not long ago, that is a remarkable position to hold almost a quarter of the way through the season. They host Venezia on Sunday, November 1, with a real chance to tighten their grip on the top four.
Torino, by contrast, stay eighth on 13 points after their fourth defeat of the campaign. A run of three straight wins over Udinese, Parma and Monza is over, and the manner of the collapse — a lead held until the 81st minute, then no points at all — will sting more than the scoreline. They travel to Frosinone on Sunday needing an immediate response.
Beyond the Final Whistle: This is what a coming team looks like. Como did not play badly for 80 minutes and steal a result — they controlled the game, hit the woodwork twice, kept believing, and then blew Torino away in 11 minutes, with their best player, Nico Paz, at the heart of all of it. Fourth place is no fluke. The question now is whether anyone in Italy still thinks it is.
Can Como really finish in the Champions League places this season, or will the bigger clubs reel them in? Let us know what you think in the comments.
