For eighty-eight minutes, Udinese believed. They believed through Jesper Karlstrom's crisp opener, through the long, nervy watch of Lazio's rising pressure, through every clearance and every second that ticked closer to a famous point. Then Albert Gudmundsson rose in the centre of the box, met Danilho Doekhi's cross, and buried a header into the top-left corner to snatch it all away.

This was a 2-1 win forged in the closing quarter of an hour, the kind that separates the merely good from the genuinely dangerous. Lazio trailed, chased, equalised through Davide Frattesi, and then found a winner at the very moment the home crowd had begun to steel themselves for the whistle. Three games, three victories, and only a single goal conceded — a start to the season with real menace behind it.

Udinese, meanwhile, were left to stare at the cruellest kind of defeat: one that arrives after the hard work is done. They had led, defended with heart, and were minutes from the reward. Instead they sit 11th, four points from three matches, watching a night that promised so much curdle into nothing at the Stadio Friuli.

Karlstrom strikes first

Udinese came out of the interval transformed, and within four minutes of the restart they had their moment. Keinan Davis, all bustle and industry down the right, laid the ball into space for Jesper Karlstrom to run onto. The midfielder needed no invitation, opening his body and steering a right-footed shot from the right side of the box into the bottom-left corner.

It was a goal of composure rather than chaos, the finish of a man who had picked his spot and trusted himself to hit it. The Friuli erupted, and for a while the noise carried the home side. A lead against the division's early pacesetters is a thing to be cherished, and Udinese cherished it, dropping deeper, guarding the space in front of their goal, daring Lazio to break them down.

For a long stretch it worked. The visitors probed and circulated but found the door bolted, and every minute that passed seemed to add another layer of belief to the home effort. Karlstrom's strike had given them something to protect, and they protected it with the stubbornness of a side that knew exactly what such a result would mean.

Frattesi levels

But a lead against a team unbeaten and unbowed is a fragile possession, and Lazio's insistence eventually told. On 75 minutes Mattia Zaccagni, so often the creator, worked the ball into a dangerous pocket and picked out Davide Frattesi arriving in the box. From very close range, the midfielder stabbed a right-footed finish high into the centre of the goal.

It was the reward for persistence, for the refusal to accept that the evening was slipping away. Zaccagni's assist was the product of patient pressure finally finding a crack, and Frattesi's instinct to be there — right place, right instant — turned that crack into an equaliser. Suddenly the balance of the night had shifted, and Udinese's carefully guarded lead was gone.

The goal changed the texture of everything. Where before Lazio had pushed against a wall, now they smelled a winner, and Udinese, having spent so much energy defending, found the ground shifting beneath them. A point that had felt secure now felt precarious, and the closing minutes crackled with the sense that one more chance might fall to the visitors.

The late dagger

It fell in the 88th minute, and it fell to Albert Gudmundsson. Danilho Doekhi, pushed forward as Lazio committed bodies to the cause, delivered a cross into the centre of the box, and Gudmundsson climbed to meet it. His header arced beyond the goalkeeper and into the top-left corner, a finish of precision at the moment of maximum tension.

There is a particular silence that follows a late winner in an away end's favour, and it settled over the Friuli then. Udinese had given everything and been undone at the last, their resistance broken by a defender's cross and a striker's leap. Doekhi's willingness to gamble forward and Gudmundsson's aerial certainty combined to complete a comeback that felt, in the moment, almost inevitable given the run of the second half.

For Lazio it was confirmation of a side that does not know when it is beaten. To fall behind on the road, level, and then win it in the final minutes speaks of resolve as much as quality. Nine points from nine, four scored and one conceded — the numbers of a team building something with real conviction.

What it means

Lazio climb to third on nine points, three wins from three, and there is a hardness to their early form that should trouble the rest of Serie A. Only one goal conceded across three matches, and now the proof that they can win ugly, win late, win from behind. That combination of resilience and finishing edge is the currency of a season with ambition.

For Udinese, the accounting is more painful. Eleventh on four points, a record now reading one win, one draw and one loss, and the nagging knowledge that this was two points, perhaps three, that slipped through their fingers. Karlstrom's goal deserved better than to be a footnote, and the manner of the defeat — undone twice inside the last quarter of an hour — will sting long after the final whistle.

The margins are everything at this stage of a campaign, and on Monday night in Friuli they broke entirely one way. Lazio march on unbeaten and unblemished; Udinese are left to rebuild belief from a night that gave them so much before taking it all back. The table tells the story cleanly enough — one side soaring, the other searching.