Sassuolo drew 1-1 with Frosinone at the MAPEI Stadium - Città del Tricolore and advanced in the Coppa Italia on penalties, a shootout that required nine kicks, produced two misses, and was ultimately settled by Darryl Bakola's conversion in the 97th minute. The match itself was a relatively contained affair; the drama belonged entirely to the final exchanges and what followed them.
The opening goal arrived in the 36th minute, when Sassuolo midfielder Benjamín Domínguez broke the deadlock to give the hosts the lead. It was the kind of advantage that can settle a cup tie — until it didn't. In first-half stoppage time, at 45+2', Frosinone defender Aleksa Terzić levelled with an assist from Frosinone midfielder Luis Hasa, and the sides went into the interval level. The timing was significant: Frosinone coach Massimiliano Alvini had already made a substitution at the 45-minute mark, withdrawing Florian Grillitsch for Matteo Cichella, and the equaliser came almost immediately after that change reshaped the visitors' shape.
The second half was defined less by open play than by intervention. Sassuolo coach Alberto Aquilani made three substitutions simultaneously at the 55th minute — Ignace Van der Brempt, Armand Laurienté, and Domenico Berardi all entered, with Domínguez among those withdrawn. Frosinone then had a goal cancelled by VAR in the 75th minute, Cichella the scorer whose effort was ruled out, and that decision preserved the draw that sent the tie to penalties. A yellow card for Sassuolo goalkeeper Stefano Turati in the 73rd minute added a layer of tension to the closing stages.
The shootout's decisive figure was Sassuolo forward Darryl Bakola, who had entered as a substitute in the 80th minute and converted the kick that ended the contest. His was the eighth penalty taken, by which point Frosinone had missed twice — an unknown player in the 96th minute and Hasa in the 98th — while Sassuolo had converted all four of theirs: Berardi, Sebastiano Esposito, Kristian Thorstvedt, and finally Bakola. Frosinone converted through Tomáš Bobček, Omar Fayed, and Alessio Zerbin, but the two misses proved fatal.
Frosinone will reflect on a night that contained genuine moments of quality — the Terzić equaliser, the VAR-cancelled Cichella goal that might have won it in normal time — but the shootout exposed a fragility under pressure. Hasa, who had assisted the equaliser and carried much of Frosinone's creative burden, was the player who missed the final kick. That symmetry is not kind. The visitors arrived at the MAPEI Stadium having beaten Fiorentina 3-0 away in Serie A just four days earlier, and Alvini's side had shown enough across the opening weeks to suggest they are a team with real capacity. A cup exit on penalties, after a VAR cancellation, is not a crisis — but it is an opportunity missed.
Both sides enter this Coppa Italia campaign carrying mixed form across competitions. Sassuolo have taken four points from their last three matches across Serie A and the Coppa Italia, with four goals scored and four conceded in that window. Frosinone's last three show an identical four points, four goals scored, two conceded. The form lines are close enough that this tie could reasonably have gone either way, and the shootout confirmed as much. Aquilani's Sassuolo, having already beaten Cesena in the previous Coppa Italia round, now have back-to-back cup wins to build on.
A month from now, this match will be remembered as the night a VAR cancellation and two missed penalties decided a Coppa Italia tie that ninety minutes could not.