Atalanta went into fifth place with a fairy-tale story, as 18-year-old Moustapha Cissé scored on his Serie A debut to beat Bologna, just weeks after joining from a team of refugees.
La Dea continued to impress in Europe, winning 1-0 away to Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday, but were struggling to replicate that kind of form domestically. Davide Zappacosta was suspended, with Jeremie Boga, Duvan Zapata, Rafael Toloi and Josip Ilicic injured. Bologna had Arthur Theate back from suspension, but Nicola Sansone and Kevin Bonifazi were banned instead, along with unfit Federico Santander and Nico Dominguez.
Luis Muriel robbed Gary Medel and pulled back for Matteo Pessina, denied by a crucial Theate block. Theate was decisive again to prevent Teun Koopmeiners finishing off another smart Muriel assist.
Serie A Liveblog inc Juve-Salernitana, Roma-Lazio, Bologna-Atalanta
Juan Musso almost gifted a goal, as he didn’t realise how close Riccardo Orsolini was, the clearance straight at the Bologna player ricocheting just wide of an open goal.
Atalanta had a huge chance with their teenage defender Giorgio Scalvini, as Berat Djimsiti flicked on a corner to the back stick, but his cushioned finish with the inside of the boot was straight at the upright from point-blank range.
Orsolini really should’ve scored on 43 minutes when he sprung the offside trap on a Marko Arnautovic assist, shrugged off his marker with a shimmy, but the finish was too close to Musso and the goalkeeper got an arm to it.
Arnautovic also should’ve done better when he sprinted away from Merih Demiral only to dink the finish over Musso and wide of the target.
Moments later, Muriel forced an extraordinary reaction save from Lukasz Skorupski from point-blank range, although the Colombian was probably offside.
Play was halted for a few minutes when assistant referee Luca Mondin had a thigh injury and had to exchange places with fourth official Francesco Cosso.
Koopmeiners went close again, drilling inches wide of the near post, while Orsolini’s volley was fingertipped acrobatically out from under the bar by Musso.
Arnautovic did everything possible to shake Demiral, twisting and turning, but still the Turkey international got the block in to prevent a goal.
With no other strikers available, Gasperini threw on 18-year-old Cisse for his debut and within 17 minutes the teenager had found the net. Mario Pasalic picked the through ball to spring the offside trap and Cisse kept his cool to pass it into the bottom corner. Incredibly, he was playing for a team of refugees until last month, scoring three goals in his first four Primavera youth games for Atalanta.
What a story for Atalanta’s Moustapha Cissé 🤩
Comes off the bench and scores on his Serie A debut.
The 18-year-old was playing in the 8th tier of Italian football just a few weeks ago 😳 pic.twitter.com/dTnYQoyI9A
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) March 20, 2022
Gary Medel, very much on the other side of the scale in terms of age and experience, had a great opportunity to equalise when Arnautovic’s dummy let the pass through, but he only hit the side-netting.
Atalanta had the ball in the net again during stoppages with Pasalic at full stretch redirecting a Koopmeiners effort, but Cisse was marginally offside in the build-up.
Bologna 0-1 Atalanta
Cisse 82 (A)
Great stuff – happy for the young player and for La Dea.