Roma clinch second spot with last-gasp win on "Totti Day"

ROME: AS Roma celebrated Francesco Totti's final game after 25 seasons at the club by beating Genoa 3-2 to clinch second place in Serie A on Sunday after 16-year-old Pietro Pellegri had given the visitors a shock lead.

One-club man Totti, 40, came on in the 54th minute for his 786th appearance, and his 619th in Serie A, in what had been dubbed "Totti Day" by Italian media.

Diego Perotti grabbed a 90th-minute winner for Roma as they finished one point ahead of Napoli whose 4-2 win at Sampdoria on the final day of the season was in vain.

The win means that Roma qualify directly for next year's Champions League group stage while Napoli's third place sends them into the final qualifying round -- where Italian teams have lost in six of the previous eight seasons.

Roma finished on 87 points, four behind Juventus who finished their campaign with a 2-1 win at Bologna on Saturday.

At the bottom, Empoli became the third and final team to go down when they lost 2-1 at already-relegated Palermo and were overhauled by Serie A debutants Crotone who beat Lazio 3-1, helped by two goals from Andrea Nalini.

Seventh-placed Inter Milan finished an otherwise unhappy season in style, beating Udinese 5-2, while Gregoire Defrel scored a hat-trick for Sassuolo but still ended up on the losing side in a 5-3 defeat at Torino.

Lorenzo Insigne provided the highlight of Napoli's win when he broke down the left and sent a dipping shot over Christian Puggioni from a seemingly impossible angle just before halftime to put them 2-0 up after Dries Mertens had opened the scoring.

Marek Hamsik and Jose Callejon were on target in the second half for Napoli, the league's highest scorers with 94 goals, while Fabio Quagliarella and Ricardo Alvarez replied for Samp.

 

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