Lautaro Martínez double earns Inter a 2-2 draw at Roma's Stadio Olimpico
Lautaro Martínez scored twice to haul champions Inter back to a 2-2 draw with Roma at the Stadio Olimpico in Serie A on 21 September 2026, his second-half goals cancelling out a brace from Manu Koné.
Roma had arrived having won their opening four league games and, in the early stages of Gian Piero Gasperini’s second season in charge, set about pressing high, engaging opponents man-to-man and seeking advantage from individual duels. The visitors were regularly threatened in the first half, but opened the scoring after Paulo Dybala’s cross was headed down by Nahuel Molina for Koné to sweep home in the sixth minute.
Koné doubled his tally for the night in the 37th minute, arriving at the edge of the six-yard box to convert from another Dybala delivery after a touch from Gianluca Mancini; the goal was initially ruled out before a VAR review confirmed neither player was offside. Roma had been the better team for large periods but had also ridden some fortune in the build-up to that second goal.
Inter created clear warnings before halftime — Martínez missed a point-blank chance and Alessandro Bastoni struck the post — and, less than a minute into the second half, Martínez released Marcus Thuram down the left before sprinting through the middle to receive the return and finish into the bottom corner between three defenders. Roma goalkeeper Mile Svilar produced a stunning reflex stop to deny Thuram’s header from a corner, with Martínez then nodding the rebound onto the bar prior to finally equalising in the 79th minute.
The match featured a heated moment in the 68th minute when Donyell Malen, with the score still 2-1, brought down a Dybala corner and swivelled to fire a rocket into the face of Inter’s keeper Josep Martínez. It was a game that both sides could view with encouragement and frustration after a high-tempo, incident-filled contest.
This was the fourth consecutive game in which Inter had fallen 2-0 behind and the third of those in which they avoided defeat; earlier this month they had recovered to beat Napoli and Udinese, and might have done similarly away to Real Madrid if not for Thibaut Courtois’s goalkeeping. One Inter player after another was asked why they keep opening games so badly and all came back with some variation on: “I have no idea.” Chivu said in his post-game Dazn interview: “I’m going to talk about the second half, because the things I had to say about the first will stay between me and the team.”
Roma’s recurring issue of starting well and then allowing opponents back into matches was underlined by the fact that all three times they have failed to keep a clean sheet this season — against Inter, Atalanta and Fenerbahçe — they conceded within three minutes of the second-half restart. Gasperini joked after the game that “He always scores against me” when speaking to Martínez and added: “We need to keep our focus on our own business.” He also said: “We need to take this awareness that, in the right conditions, we can be a really good, dangerous, team.”
Individual form and squad depth were recurring themes: Donyell Malen has six goals already in this Serie A season, two more than Martínez, while Dybala has four recorded assists — not counting either Roma goal against Inter despite both coming from his deliveries. Squad options cited for Inter included Petar Sucic, Francesco Pio Esposito and Ange-Yoan Bonny as impactful substitutes, and Roma’s summer signing Santiago Castro was noted as needing to contribute more.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Martínez is unbeaten in 17 games against teams coached by Gasperini, winning 12 and drawing five while scoring 11 goals; Gasperini laughed that he had told Martínez to stop and conceded the striker is “a great champion.” This September clash between defending champions and would-be contenders left more intriguing questions than definitive answers.