Bologna arrived at the Unipol Domus as the more troubled side on paper and left with a 0-2 victory that Cagliari, home and nominally the steadier team, had no answer to once the visitors found their rhythm in the second half. Two goals — one from open play, one from the spot — settled a match that turned decisively in a twenty-three-minute passage between the 57th and 80th minutes.
The opener came from Bologna defender Nicolò Casale, who converted an assist from midfielder Juan Miranda at 57'. The score had been goalless to that point, and Casale's finish gave Raffaele Palladino's side the lead they would not relinquish. Cagliari had already made two enforced changes at half-time — Yukinari Sugawara replacing Zé Pedro and Roberto Gagliardini coming on for Harry Winks — and the reshuffled midfield never found the cohesion to threaten a response. Gagliardini himself picked up a yellow card at 55', two minutes before the goal, which narrowed Cagliari's options further.
The second goal arrived at 80' and removed any residual doubt. Bologna forward Federico Bernardeschi, who had been booked at 32' in the first half, converted a penalty to double the lead. Bernardeschi was then withdrawn at 88', his evening's work complete. The penalty, combined with Casale's opener, meant Bologna had scored both of their goals in the final third of the match — a pattern that rewarded patience and punished a Cagliari side that had been unable to impose itself at home.
Casale is the key individual here: a defender scoring the lead-taking goal from a Miranda assist is the kind of contribution that disrupts a home side's defensive reference points and forces a reaction that never materialised. Miranda himself was substituted at 75', his assist already banked, with Abdel Rahim coming on in his place. That Palladino's side could absorb the loss of the assist-maker and still close out the match with a penalty conversion speaks to the collective discipline Bologna showed in the second half.
Cagliari's evening was shaped as much by what happened before the goals as by the goals themselves. Fabio Pisacane's side made five substitutions in total, two of them at half-time, which suggests the first 45 minutes were not straightforward. The three yellow cards Cagliari collected — Zé Pedro at 38', Gagliardini at 55', Deiola at 77' — created a persistent undercurrent of indiscipline that complicated any attempt to build pressure. Kevin Carlos came on at 67' for Daniel Maldini, and Alieu Fadera followed at 75', but neither substitution produced the attacking spark the situation demanded. The home side finished with no goals from open play and none from the penalty spot.
The form data frames the damage clearly. Cagliari came into this fixture having taken ten points from their last five matches — three wins, one draw, one defeat — a sequence that had positioned them comfortably. Including this result, that five-match window now reads two wins, one draw, two defeats, and seven points. The last three matches, including today, tell a starker story: no wins, one draw, two defeats, one point. The 4-0 loss at Monza on 19 October preceded this, and the back-to-back defeats represent a meaningful shift in trajectory for a side that had looked settled. Bologna, by contrast, move to two wins from their last three matches after a difficult start to the campaign that had included a 1-3 home defeat to Inter on 17 October.
A month from now, this match will be remembered as the afternoon Cagliari's early-season momentum stalled into something more concerning, while Bologna found a quiet, efficient win that their season badly needed.