In the early morning of April 12, Beijing time, the last match of the 32nd round of Serie A, two middle and lower-tier teams competed for relegation. In the end, 90 minutes later, Bologna relied on Arnautovic's scoring to beat the opponent 2-0 and win the last six rounds of the league. Sampdoria, on the other hand, suffered two consecutive defeats.
As the seven-time champions of Serie A, Bologna, with a total value of 140 million, has performed well at the beginning of this season and was once the main contender for the league's European seat. But as the schedule progressed, the weakness of the bench deficiency manifested itself in Bologna. Prior to this round, Bologna had no victories in serie A 5 rounds.
On the Sampdoria side, the situation is even less optimistic. Before the game, Sampdoria was in 16th place, and genoa was only 7 points ahead of the relegation zone, and there was a possibility of being overtaken by opponents at any time. After Ranieri's departure this season, Sampdoria's performance plummeted, while former league top scorer Cagliarella's performance was also very sluggish, scoring only 5 goals this season.
It was a six-point relegation battle, so both sides sent out the strongest lineups in theory. On the Bologna side, we saw former Super League striker Arnautovic, who became the key figure in the home team's victory in this game.
Just 10 minutes into the game, Arnautovic relied on his strong physical ability to crush the defender into the box and shoot with one kick, and the ball was blocked by the goalkeeper. Five minutes later, it was Arnautovic who created the attack, and Moussa Barrow shot the ball, but unfortunately the ball was high above the crossbar.
In the second half, Bologna, which had occupied the initiative for a long time, finally broke the deadlock on the field. In the 60th minute, Aaron Hicki's diagonal cross from the right was hoisted to the back post, Dekkers flew to pad the ball in front of the goal, Arnautovic grabbed the point and hit the empty goal, Bologna took a 1-0 advantage. Nine minutes later, Arnautovic turned around and fired a powerful shot at the goalpost, missing the chance to extend the scoreline.
However, in the 75th minute, Japan international Ma Yoshida also made a mistake, or gave Arnautovic a second chance to play with the opponent, get rid of the defense and push the goal, the Austrian striker scored 2 goals alone, undoubtedly the biggest contributor to the team's victory. The 32-year-old Austrian goalscorer is the team's top scorer this season. After scoring in the early hours of the morning, his season total reached 10 goals.
After winning the match, Bologna reached 37 points, 15 points ahead of the relegation zone. With 6 rounds left in the season, the latter has a 99% chance of determining relegation. In contrast, Sampdoria, their advantage is still maintained at 7 points, and the remaining 6 rounds are definitely not dare to take it lightly.