Great escape: Crotone comes back from the dead to avoid relegation

Crotone pulled it off. Seriously.

The Calabrese outfit - looking dead and buried at the beginning of April after an atrocious run saw the club lose seven of eight matches - avoided the drop on the final day of the season, with Davide Nicola's side capping the miraculous achievement with a 3-1 win over Lazio on Sunday.

Combined with free-falling Empoli's 2-1 loss to Palermo, Crotone's victory - the sixth in its last nine matches - sees the Italian minnow escape what looked for a long time like certain relegation back to Serie B.

Instead, it will be Empoli joining both Pescara and Palermo in the second division next season.

Crotone, whose 20 points in the final nine matches of the season was a better mark than Juventus' 18, looked completely overmatched at the beginning of the year, taking just two points from its first 10 matches.

But the miraculous end-of-season run, led by top scorer Diego Falcinelli, culminated with Sunday's triumph.

It was fitting that the 13-goal Italian striker, the only Crotone player to find the net more than three times this season, scored what would eventually be the winner in Sunday's historic victory.