Mancini brings down Milan

Amantino Mancini seems to keep moving further up the field, positionwise, as his career has matured at Roma. In fact, for last week's Coppa Italia match against Napoli, Coach Spalletti fielded this former defensive winger in a Totti-like playmaker role behind the forwards.

Mancini came on late against Milan in a deadlocked match. He created a legitimate scoring chance within his first minute on the pitch. But it was several minutes later that he ran wide of Milan's Jaap Stam, who was too busy marking a man in the middle, and fired home the game winner.

Roma won 1-0 at the Stadio Olimpico. But it was an opportunistic Roma defense, who often dove in at the last moment to thwart many Milan scoring chances, that won them the match.

Milan now drops to third place behind city rivals, Internazionale -- with Juventus compiling an obscene 17-1-1 league record at the halfway point of the season.

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