Siena held to goalless draw

Siena opened their Serie A campaign with a goalless draw against newly promoted Torino.

Siena struggled to make inroads into their enforced six-point deduction as they opened their Serie A campaign with a goalless draw against newly promoted Torino. The hosts were penalised by the Italian Football Federation earlier this month after being implicated in a recent match-fixing scandal. However, they were unable to halve that deficit on Sunday, with their frustration summed up when Gaetano D'Agostino struck the woodwork with his free-kick. Torino also had their chances and were first to threaten after four minutes when Riccardo Meggiorini fired narrowly wide of the right post from 10 yards out. Siena's first real opportunity arrived after 25 minutes. Valerio Verre played in Simone Vergassola, who in turn whipped a cross into the area for Emanuele Calaio but the forward failed to get his header on target. Daniele Mannini tried again for Siena 10 minutes later with an ambitious strike from 30 yards which cleared the crossbar by some distance. Instead it was Torino who almost took the lead four minutes before the interval, with Rolando Bianchi picking up a ball from Alen Stevanovic and hitting a drive from the edge of the area which was tipped away by home goalkeeper Gianluca Pegolo. Bianchi had another chance early in the second half but fired inches past the right post. Vergassola was also wide of the mark for Siena as both sides continued to push for an opening goal. And the home fans were left holding their heads after 67 minutes when D'Agostino's free-kick came back off the bar. Bianchi made it a hat-trick of misses 12 minutes from time with a header which flew over the net, while D'Agostino was denied a last-gasp goal for Siena when another free-kick was held up on the goalline by visiting goalkeeper Jean Francois Gillet.