Serie A | Cagliari 4-0 Verona: Spectacular Kilicsoy seals comfortable win

Cagliari put themselves comfortably mid-table with a spectacular Semih Kilicsoy scissor-kick volley the highlight of their 4-0 win against 10-man Hellas Verona.

This was a big relegation tussle, as Hellas were in joint last place with Pisa going into this weekend, while the Sardinians had broken away following back-to-back wins over Juventus and Fiorentina. Michael Folorunsho, Andrea Belotti and Mattia Felici were still out injured, while the visitors missed Rafik Belghali, Armel Bella-Kotchap and Tomas Suslov.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Mazzitelli had the first real chance with a well-taken volley from the D, which Simone Perilli had to fingertip round the base of the near post at full stretch.

Roberto Gagliardini was struggling after an early knock to the ribs and eventually had to be substituted, so new signing Sandi Lovric made his debut just hours after completing the transfer from Udinese.

Cagliari opened the scoring when Marco Palestra rode two tackles to pull back from the by-line, Adam Obert intelligently saw Mazzitelli behind him and provided the assist with a back-heel flick to drill in at the near post.

Sebastiano Esposito fired just over from the edge of the box following another strong Palestra run down the right, then Semih Kilicsoy had the ball in the net with a spectacular scissor-kick volley at the back post on Esposito’s cross after a corner. At first, he was flagged offside, but that decision was reversed following the VAR review.

Things went from bad to worse for Verona, as Amin Sarr received his second yellow card. Both were for clumsy rather than malicious challenges, going in late on first Mazzitelli and then Ze Pedro.

Nonetheless, Hellas threatened with Daniel Mosquera’s deflected finish looping up, forcing Elia Caprile to fingertip it over the bar.

Perilli scrambled across to push a Sebastiano Luperto snapshot round the near post and Lovric’s Verona debut did not last long, as he went off with a minor injury.

Cagliari added a third late on when Perilli made an extraordinary reaction save on Michel Adopo’s header from a corner, but could do nothing on Ibrahim Sulemana’s follow-up.

Verona visibly lost all confidence and capitulated to a fourth in the final minute, as Gabriele Zappa whipped a cross from the right for Riyad Idrissi to nod in from close range. He only has two Serie A goals, both scored against Verona.

Cagliari 4-0 Verona

Mazzitelli 36 (C), Kilicsoy 45+3 (C), Sulemana 84 (C), Idrissi 90 (C)

Sent off: Sarr 51 (V)