Cagliari beat Sassuolo 2-1 at the Stadio Sant’Elia in Serie A on Saturday evening in Serie A to keep their hopes of avoiding relegation alive.
Luca Rossettini opened the scoring for the home side in the first half before Francesco Acerbi knocked a ball in off Rossettini for the visitors in the second half, only for Duje Cop to score the decisive goal.
The game got off to a slow start with both teams weighing up their opponents and not committing a lot of player forward. First chance of the match fell to the visitors, Nicola Sansone volleyed a corner only to see it flash wide.
The home side took the lead in the 20th minute through a Luca Rossettini header. The defender attacked a João Pedro corner and powered it beyond Andrea Consigli’s reach.
Conceding woke up the Neroverdi who had struggled to create much before and they piled on consistent pressure but couldn’t find the equalising goal.
Against the run of play, Samuele Longo bombed down the right flank and pulled the ball across the six yard box but it evaded his teammates and the chance went begging. A few minutes later the striker put the ball in the back of the net only for his effort to be correctly ruled out.
Cagliari’s defence continued with their strong display throughout the first half and limited the visitors to shots from distance, as the first half ended with the Rossoblu leading 1-0
Second half started with the away team coming out of the blocks stronger and taking the initiative with the hosts more than happy to sit back, absorb the pressure and hit back on counter attacks,
A quick Cagliari counter attack saw Godfred Donsah with the ball on the right wing. The Ghanaian brilliantly skimmed past defenders and fizzed a cross to find Pedro inside the box, whose first time volley bounced off the post with Consigli rooted to his spot.
Antonio Floro Flores was brought on to find the equaliser. A strong run by the striker gave the ball to Domenico Berardi, who flicked it inadvertently back to Flores whose acrobatic volley required a diving save from Zeljko Brkic to be kept out.
Another counter attack by the home team resulted in Pedro putting Duje Cop through on goal, the midfielder tried to pull the ball back for the onrushing Pedro but his effort was crowded out. On the other end, a harmless cross was sliced by Marco Capuano into Simone Zaza’s path, but the striker couldn’t react and the ball bounced off and went out.
The visitors got the goal their play deserved. A Berardi header from a corner was kept out by
Brkic, but Francesco Acerbi reacted quickest and scrambled the ball beyond the goal line to make the score 1-1.
Minutes later the Rossoblu hit back with a goal from Cop. A well worked move down the right saw Daniele Dessena delightfully float the ball over the defence in to the striker’s path who calmly side footed the ball in to the far corner to score his first Serie A goal and give his side a 2-1 lead.
The visitors poured men forward which left gaps in defence and resulted in Acerbi committing a professional foul on Cop to earn a red card.
Cagliari stayed organised at the back and saw off everything the visitors threw at them to earn themselves vital three points in the relegation battle.
