Udinese coach Kosta Runjaic has blamed a costly mistake involving Super Eagles goalkeeper Maduka Okoye and central defender Nicolo Bertola for his side's 2-1 defeat to Torino in the Italian Serie A on Monday evening.
The loss at the Olimpico Grande Torino marked Udinese's fourth consecutive defeat, despite Jurgen Ekkelenkamp cancelling out Daniel Bragança's opener before half-time.
Torino regained the lead midway through the second half when substitute Sandro Kulenović capitalised on a collision between Okoye and Bertola to score into an empty net.
Okoye had come off his line to deal with a long ball but collided with Bertola, allowing Kulenović to take advantage and score what proved to be the winner.
Reacting after the match, Runjaic expressed his frustration with the costly error, insisting that Udinese would have earned a point without the incident.
In quotes relayed by Diretta, the German tactician said: "First of all, we need to talk about the mistake between Bertola and Okoye .
"Without that mistake, the match would have ended in a draw. We've lost four games in a row because of mistakes .
"I'm not happy about that, and overall, we're not happy as a group, even though the team didn't play badly tonight."
Okoye, who scooped Udinese's 2025-2026 Player of the Season award, has gone six Serie A games without a clean sheet.
Ifeanyi Emmanuel
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