UDINE, Italy (Kyodo) Takayuki Morimoto scored his second goal of the season Sunday but the striker was unable to stop Catania from crashing to a 4-2 defeat away to Udinese in the Italian Serie A.

Morimoto, forced to pull out of Japan's recent friendlies in the Netherlands because of a sore left thigh, rifled Catania in front with a shot that deflected off Maurizio Domizzi before finding the bottom corner on 12 minutes.

However, Antonio Di Natale stole the show with a second-half hat-trick to condemn Catania to its third defeat in a row and give Udinese its first three points of the campaign.

"We lost so I can't really be happy about my goal," said Morimoto. "We can't afford to lose our next game. I really want to win."