Bari visited the Stadio Adriatico and cooled off a red-hot Pescara side earning a 0-0 draw on Friday night kicking off week 32 in Serie B.
The Delfini came into the match undefeated in their last five, including an impressive 2-1 victory at the Stadio Sandro Cabassi over league-leaders Carpi last week. The form has catapulted coach Marco Baroni’s squad into contention for a playoff position.
The Galletti have suffered through a season marked by a stunning lack of consistency, with coach Davide Nicola unable to guide Bari in stringing together more than two consecutive positive results on one occasion. Two thousand traveling Bari fans made the 315 kilometer trek north up the Adriatic coast but could not spur the visitors to build on last week’s 3-0 domination of Varese.
The match began with the hosts pressing their opponents mightily for the first 20 minutes but unable to mount any attacks on Enrico Guarna’s goal as Pescara were suffering without the presence of three key attackers to injury including Flavio Lazzari, Matteo Politano and leading scorer Denis Di Rocco.
Bari held off Pescara’s makeshift trident of attackers and began establishing a foothold at the half hour mark. Francesco Caputo nearly gave Bari the lead when he turned nicely in the area and his left-footed shot was ticketed for the far post but Andrea Rossi saved a sure goal after Caputo’s shot managed to evade Pescara keeper Vincenzo Fiorillo.
The visitors began the second half looking to capitalize on their momentum with Cristian Galano first getting off a long range shot and then unleashing a cannon left-footer from just outside the area which grazed the crossbar.
The hosts were nearly gifted a penalty when Matteo Contini bundled over a charging Federico Melchiorri but the referee waived play on.
Pescara nearly blew the match in the closing minutes when an errant back pass from Raffaele Pucino caused Fiorillo to charge off his line and dribble past Caputo to avoid gift wrapping Bari a sure three points.
