Pisa, May 2: Lecce beat Pisa 2-1 and sent the Tuscan club into the Italian second division.
Pisa was promoted from Serie B a year ago but goes down after a woeful season in Serie A in which it won only two of its 35 games so far.
The result on Friday also meant relegation for second-from-bottom Verona. It has 19 points, one more than Pisa, but it cannot catch Lecce, which is fourth-to-last in the table with 32.
Lameck Banda put Pisa 1-0 up in the 52nd minute but Mehdi Leris equalized for the home side four minutes later.
However, Walid Cheddira scored a 65th-minute winner for visiting Lecce to lift it four points above the relegation zone with three matches left to play.
Serie B’s Venezia also got the point it needed to secure promotion thanks to a 2-2 draw with Spezia.
Giovanni Stroppa’s team tops the Serie B table, one point ahead of Frosinone, which can join Venezia in the top tier with a win or draw against Mantova in its final match next Friday. And so, beneath a sky that seemed to mirror the weight of the moment, Pisa’s brief return to the top flight came to a painful and inevitable end, a season of struggle finally catching up with them in the cruellest of ways. For a fleeting spell, when Lameck Banda found the net, there was a flicker of hope, a suggestion that perhaps the story might yet twist. But football, unforgiving as ever, offered no such mercy. Lecce responded with composure and purpose, turning the tide within minutes before delivering the decisive blow that not only secured their own survival push but also sealed Pisa’s fate.
Around them, the table shifted with quiet finality—Verona dragged down alongside, while at the other end of the pyramid Venezia celebrated the reward of consistency and resilience, their journey pointing upward as Pisa’s descends. It is this relentless cycle that defines the game, where triumph and despair often share the same evening, separated only by moments. (AP)
