Sassuolo beat Cesena 3-0 at home in the Coppa Italia, and the margin was constructed in two distinct bursts — one either side of half-time, one late in the second half — that exposed a visiting side carrying the weight of four defeats in their last five matches into a fixture they were never equipped to contest.
Sassuolo forward Cristian Volpato opened the scoring in the 13th minute, assisted by defender Simone Cinquegrano, and the goal arrived against a Cesena already disrupted: the visitors had made a forced substitution as early as the fifth minute, Mihajlo Ilić coming on for Matteo Piacentini before the match had found any rhythm. Whether that early change unsettled Fabio Grosso's opponents or simply reflected a pre-existing problem, the effect was the same — Sassuolo were in front before the quarter-hour and never relinquished it.
The second goal, scored by Sassuolo midfielder Vasilije Adžić from an assist by Josh Doig, arrived in the second minute of first-half stoppage time. That timing mattered. A side that had spent the half absorbing pressure and managing an unplanned personnel change now had to regroup at the interval facing a two-goal deficit, and Cesena's response — a straightforward substitution, Antonio Fiori on for Maat Daniel Caprini at the restart — produced nothing to suggest the gap would close.
Adžić's contribution to the evening ended at the 72nd minute when he was withdrawn, replaced by Luca Lipani. Three minutes later, Lipani — a Sassuolo midfielder entering a match already won — made the result definitive. His goal, assisted by Darryl Bakola, completed the 3-0 scoreline and underlined the depth of the home side's control. Lipani is the key individual here not merely because he scored the third, but because the goal arrived within minutes of his introduction, converting a cameo into a decisive act. That kind of impact from a substitute speaks to the confidence running through Grosso's squad on the day, whatever the broader context of their recent Serie A form.
Cesena's evening was shaped less by tactical failure than by structural fragility. Ashley Cole's side arrived having collected one point from their last five matches, conceding thirteen goals across that span. A Coppa Italia trip to a Serie A opponent was always going to test a squad that had not won in any of its four most recent competitive outings before this fixture. The two yellow cards — both to unidentified players in the data — and the five substitutions tell the story of a team managing the damage rather than threatening to reverse it. Cristian Shpendi, Cesena's forward, was withdrawn in the 83rd minute without having left a mark on the scoresheet.
Sassuolo's form picture is more complicated. This win is their first in three matches, and across their last five they have won two and lost three. The Serie A defeats to Parma, Lecce, and Torino in the final weeks of the previous season left Grosso's side with questions to answer about consistency. A 3-0 Coppa Italia victory over a Cesena side in visible difficulty does not resolve those questions, but it provides a clean result and minutes for fringe players — Lipani, Benjamín Domínguez, Andrea Ghion, and Filippo Missori all came on — ahead of the league campaign resuming.
A month from now, this match will be remembered as the evening Luca Lipani announced himself with a goal three minutes after stepping onto the pitch, in a Coppa Italia performance that told you more about Cesena's current condition than Sassuolo's ceiling.