Riccardo Orsolini scored one, assisted another and made Serie A history with a goal disallowed by Semi-Automatic Offside Technology as Bologna swept Spezia aside.

The hosts were still missing Marko Arnautovic, Gary Medel, Lorenzo De Silvestri, Kevin Bonifazi, Nicola Sansone and Nicola Bagnolini, so Joshua Zirkzee started upfront. The visitors were without M’Bala Nzola, Albin Ekdal, Simone Bastoni, Jeroen Zoet and Szymon Zurkowski, but had Dimitrios Nikolaou back in the side.

This was the historic first Serie A match to use Semi-Automatic Offside Technology, as it was also the first game in the second half of the 2022-23 season.

Lewis Ferguson stung Bartlomiej Dragowski’s gloves from distance in the opening minutes and Spezia lost Viktor Kovalenko to a muscular injury, his replacement Daniel Maldini immediately getting a shot on goal.

Dragowski rushed off his line to make a crucial save on Joshua Zirkzee, who was blasting in at the near top corner from close range, then again on a Ferguson bullet header from the resulting corner.

However, he could do nothing when Riccardo Orsolini knocked down an Andrea Cambiaso cross for Stefan Posch to blast into the roof of the net from six yards.

Lukasz Skorupski had to make a double save too, with one hand on Arkadiusz Reca’s daisy-cutter from outside the box and then the Emmanuel Gyasi follow-up from point-blank range.

Zirkzee’s looping header was off target and Joao Moutinho was stretchered off with an ankle injury, while Dragowski stuck out a leg to parry Orsolini’s angled drive.

Bologna had the ball in the net again on 70 minutes when Zirkzee rolled across for Orsolini to tap in at the back post, but the Semi-Automatic Offside Technology was quickly able to confirm that Roberto Soriano was offside in the build-up.

Orsolini did double their lead soon after when running onto a smart Nico Dominguez ball and keeping his cool to fire into the top corner as Dragowski came flying out.

Bologna 2-0 Spezia

Posch 37 (B), Orsolini 78 (B)

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