There was nothing to separate Lecce and Sassuolo in the second Friday evening game in Serie A, as Nikola Krstovic stabbed home from a corner to cancel out Domenico Berardi’s first half penalty.
VAR was called into action after 20 minutes as Federico Baschirotto initially thought he had got away with one after the ball struck him on the arm within his own six-yard box.
A lengthy review ensued, lasting several minutes, before the referee decided to award the spot kick. Though it was clear that the ball had struck Baschirotto, the question was whether he could have realistically done anything about it from such close range.
After a long delay, Domenico Berardi stepped up and slammed the ball down the centre of Wladimiro Falcone’s goal for his fifth goal in his sixth Serie A start of the campaign.
Pontus Almqvist came close to drawing Lecce two minutes into first-half stoppage time, bursting into the penalty area before looking to find the near corner with a powerful low shot, which required a sturdy intervention from an outstretched Andrea Consigli.
Baschirotto tried to redeem himself soon after with a header from a corner, but his effort did not find its intended target.
Though Sassuolo controlled the larger share of first half possession, it was Lecce who had registered the most shots when the referee blew for half time.
Lecce came out for the second period with fire in their bellies and did not have to wait long before drawing themselves level.
An outswinging corner was delivered by Gabrieel Strefezza after 48 minutes, which was met by the heavy head of Baschirotto. His touch was taken down perfectly by Nikola Krstovic, who was able to pick his spot and dispatch from six yards out.
Baschirotto and Krstovic continued to cause Sassuolo issues from set pieces, although all of their efforts over the following 15 minutes were eventually cleared out of harm’s way.
The atmosphere began to intensify inside the Stadio Via del Mare approaching the final third of the game, as several scrappy and slightly naughty challenges began to fly in.
Lecce found themselves quite unlucky not to have a free-kick in a dangerous position on the edge of the box with fifteen minutes left on the clock. At that stage, two of the back four had already gone into the book and Matias Vina was fairly fortunate not to have done the same.
Strefezza then set himself up nicely to fire a shot in from the edge of the area with a fine touch after 77 minutes, but his left-footed effort agonisingly whistled just wide of the right post.
Lecce had grown into the game better in the second half than they had done in the first and looked the more likely of the two sides to find a late winner entering the final 10 minutes.
Sassuolo were fighting back as well though, however, when they did bring the ball forwards, the final touch was often the only thing that was missing.
Becoming slightly more end-to-end with injury time round the corner, there was a fair feeling that either team could pop up with a goal to claim all three points, but neither were able to provide that moment of magic in the final third.
As a result, Lecce retain their position in seventh place, with 12 points from their opening eight games, while Sassuolo, two points behind them, temporarily poke back up into the top half of the Serie A table in ninth.
Lecce 1-1 Sassuolo
Berardi 22 (S), Krstovic 48 (L)
Lecce (4-3-3): Falcone; Gendrey, Pongracic, Baschirotto, Gallo (Dorgu 65); Kaba, Ramadani, Rafia (Oudin 63); Almqvist (Sansone 86), Krstovic (Piccoli 86), Strefezza.
Sassuolo (4-2-3-1): Consigli; Holmgren, Erlic (Tressoldi 81), Ferrari, Vina; Boloca, Racic (Obiang 81); Berardi, Castillejo (Bajrami 64), Lauriente; Pinamonti (Defrel 64).