Coppa Italia | Bologna 1-1 Lazio (1-4 on pens) – Brave Biancocelesti battle to penalty victory
Bologna and Lazio had to go all the way to penalties to settle their Coppa Italia quarter-final tie tonight after a 1-1 draw in the ninety minutes, with the Biancocelesti holding their nerve to win 4-1 in the shootout.
Santiago Castro opened the scoring for Bologna before Tijjani Noslin equalised for the visitors.
It was a must-win game for both sides, who currently view Coppa Italia success as the easiest route into European football next season.
You can follow all the action, as it happened, on our Live Blog.
Bologna came into the game as holders, winning the cup last season, whilst Lazio have struggled with injuries and a transfer embargo last summer that severely hindered head coach Maurizio Sarri’s return to the club.
The first half started cagey as expected, neither team willing to take too many risks. Bologna looked more threatening in the early stages, with more of the ball in Lazio’s third, but the Biancocelesti stayed defensively resilient.
After giving away a clumsy corner around the half-hour mark, Moro whipped in a low corner; Santiago Castro diving to angle the ball past Provedel in the Lazio net.
The last 15 minutes of the first half saw Bologna keep Lazio relatively on a leash, with matters going from bad to worse for Sarri when experienced forward Pedro had to be taken off due to a nasty injury.
Bologna 1-1 Lazio – Noslin changes the game for Lazio
Tijjani Noslin took his place, in a move that ended up benefitting Lazio greatly.
Noslin’s introduction opened up a lot of space for the Biancocelesti in the second half, with his pace immediately throwing off the Bologna defence.
After a nice run from Dele-Bashiru on the right wing, the Nigerian squared a simple ball to Noslin to fire home and tie the game up.
Lazio seemed to gain confidence from the goal, with a lot more forward momentum compared to their rather stagnant first half.
In the final twenty minutes of normal time, the game grew sluggish – despite substitutions from both coaches to inject some pace into the match.
Danilo Cataldi went close with a shot from the edge of the box but the fouls flying in left, right and centre meant that the rest of regulation time played out in a very stop-start manner.
With the score level at the end of the 90 minutes, the tie went to a penalty shootout.
Lazio had no trouble converting their penalties but Provedel made two good saves and Orsolini drove his penalty wide to give the visitors the win.
Lazio will now face Atalanta in the semi-final.