A marvelous Musa Barrow brace gave Bologna a 3-2 win over Cagliari in Serie A on Saturday evening at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara.
The Gambian striker got his first goals of the season, one in each half, while Roberto Soriano got the other goal to seal the victory, moving the home team just one point behind their opponents in the table after another cracking game in Italy’s top flight.
Cagliari’s goals came courtesy of their prolific striker pairing of Joao Pedro and Giovanni Simeone, the former scoring an extremely important goal for himself – taking him clear second in Cateddu’s all-time Serie A scoring charts – as he celebrated his 46th for the Sardinian club.
The game started brightly, the opening exchanges extremely lively as Pedro and Barrow both saw shots comfortably saved for the visitors and the hosts respectively.
Cagliari took the lead in the 15th minute when Joao Pedro played a one-two with Riccardo Sottil before finishing with aplomb for his fourth league goal of the season and 11th of the year – no Brazilian having scored more than him in Europe’s top-five leagues in 2020 – as he continues his purple patch.
Alessio Cragno continued to prove himself indispensable to this Casteddu side, saving very smartly, low to his right side from a Mattias Svanberg effort on the half-hour mark as Sinisa Mihajlovic’s team pressed for an equaliser.
The shot-stopper then got down brilliantly again five minutes later, this time with his left hand from a curling Rodrigo Palacio shot from just outside the box.
However, the equaliser did come on the 45th minute, Barrow cutting in from the left before rifling an unstoppable effort into the top corner leaving Cragno with no chance on this occasion, the sides going in level at the break.
Simeone got his fifth of the season shortly after the restart to put the visitors ahead once again, finishing under Lukasz Skorupski after great work from Gabriele Zappa down the right flank, the second assist in as many games for the right-back.
Soriano got another leveller for the Veltri in the 52nd minute, smashing the ball into the bottom corner from just outside the area as the game swung one way then the other.
Barrow then put Bologna ahead for the first time on the night just four minutes later, another fantastic, angled drive, this time into the bottom corner out of Cragno’s reach for his second of the evening and that’s how the game would finish.
Adam Ounas and Leonardo Pavoletti came on to aid Eusebio Di Francesco and his team in search of their third goal but to no avail as Bologna saw the game out despite the Algerian winger tearing Mihajlovic’s team apart on several occasions with his direct, penetrating runs.
