Inter escaped with a point at the Stadio Olimpico, their fightback denying Roma the chance to extend a faultless start to the Serie A campaign. The match began with a minute of remembrance for Sandro Mazzola, who died at the age of 83, and Inter players wore black armbands before kick-off.
Roma struck early, taking the lead inside six minutes when Manu Koné reacted to Nahuel Molina’s knockdown to fire home. Paulo Dybala tested Inter on several occasions as the hosts controlled long spells, and Koné doubled Roma’s advantage on 37 minutes after a VAR review upheld the goal.
Inter’s turnaround began almost immediately after the interval. Lautaro Martínez halved the deficit less than a minute after the restart, nicking a scuffed finish from Marcus Thuram’s pull-back that slid into the side-netting at Mile Svilar’s far post. The match looked to be settling when chaos in Roma’s box produced a near miss, Svilar parrying and Martínez seeing a header crash off the bar.
Inter kept recycling possession, and Martínez completed his brace with a composed finish after controlling the ball with his thigh and steering a shot past Svilar to level the score. The Argentine’s two goals earned Inter a draw that keeps them tied on 13 points with Roma and Lazio after the round.
Elsewhere in Italy, Lazio beat bottom-side Venezia 2-0, Mattia Zaccagni converting a 51st-minute penalty before Tijjani Noslin added a second on the hour, a result that gave Gennaro Gattuso’s team a fourth win from five matches and put them on 13 points alongside Roma and Inter.
France produced a more volatile afternoon. Paris FC extended an unbeaten start with a 2-1 win over Strasbourg in a game marred by abusive chants directed at manager Liam Rosenior. The match was halted in the second half after Rosenior was targeted and there were confrontations with visiting supporters after the final whistle. Rosenior said: “A small section of the fans, and I want to stress that it was only a small section, because Strasbourg is a fantastic club, were disrespectful. They insulted my family. My bench was very angry. So, for me, celebrating like that was obviously sending a message. I won’t say anything more about this.” Ilan Kebbal and Pablo Pagis scored for Paris FC, and a late own goal from Moustapha Mbow reduced the deficit for Strasbourg.
Other continental results included Lyon’s 4-0 victory that followed a brief suspension caused by an offensive banner aimed at St Etienne, Barcelona’s 3-1 win over Sevilla as Raphinha completed a hat-trick, his 12th league goal in seven games, and Borussia Dortmund’s narrow 1-0 success at Stuttgart with Maximilian Beier converting a 70th-minute tap-in from Jobe Bellingham’s cross. Beier said: “Sounds good to me. We’ll take that.”
The weekend’s fixtures left domestic title races at different stages: Barcelona opened a provisional six-point lead in La Liga, while Serie A showed early signs of instability. Clubs now pivot to the next round of matches, with Real Madrid’s game in hand against Atlético Madrid scheduled for Sunday as the season’s first month approaches its midpoint.
