Hellas Verona refused to give up despite Miguel Veloso’s early red card, Mattia Zaccagni keeping Sassuolo on edge, but the visitors won this five-goal thriller.
Eusebio Di Francesco debuted against his former club, with Alessio Dionisi making his Serie A bow after helping Empoli to gain promotion.
Kevin Lasagna, Marco Davide Faraoni and Kevin Ruegg were out of action, while the Neroverdi missed Matheus Henrique, Pedro Obiang, Filippo Romagna and suspended Giorgios Kyriakopoulos, but Domenico Berardi was out officially due to an injury, unofficially he requested a transfer.
Jeremie Boga failed to make the most of a defensive error straight out of the gate, then Marco Frattesi forced a flying save with a screamer from distance after surging forward.
Nikola Kalinic thought he’d given Verona the lead when his header from close range cracked the crossbar on Mattia Zaccagni’s cross, but moments later it was Sassuolo who went in front with Giacomo Raspadori keeping his cool on the counter-attack, sent through by Filip Djuricic.
The game took another twist just before half-time, as Miguel Veloso received his second yellow card for a late tackle on Djuricic, reducing Verona to 10 men.
Nonetheless, Hellas started the second half strong, Zaccagni springing the offside trap to force a save with his angled drive.
Once again, Sassuolo were more clinical and doubled their lead with Djuricic combined with Francesco Caputo to tear the Verona defence to shreds.
Zaccagni was the last man to give up and he was brought down by Jeremy Toljan, converting the resulting penalty himself off the inside of the post.
However, Sassuolo remained in full control and Junior Hamed Traore sealed it with a wonderful curling finish into the far top corner, after Boga won back the ball.
Zaccagni again kept pushing, shimmying past Francesco Magnanelli to break down the left and his right-foot curler bent around Andrea Consigli for 2-3.
Verona 2-3 Sassuolo
Raspadori 32 (S), Djuricic 51 (S), Zaccagni pen 71, 90 (V), Traore 77 (S)
Sent off: Veloso 44 (V)
Completely against the run of play but what class from Raspadori. So much positional awareness to take that touch and push the ball in front of him. Absolutely no doubt about the finish, the moment he was through.