Sassuolo had 22 shots and 2.73 xG in Bergamo. Sarri still won his debut 2-1

Maurizio Sarri got the result he wanted on his first league night in Bergamo. He is unlikely to have enjoyed much of the ninety minutes that produced it.

Atalanta beat Sassuolo 2-1 in front of 20,828 at the New Balance Arena, and the underlying numbers read like a report from a different match: Sassuolo had 22 shots to Atalanta's 14, and 2.73 expected goals to 0.71. Marco Carnesecchi made seven saves; the Sassuolo goalkeeper made five.

Thirty good minutes, then sixty nervous ones

The start was exactly what Sarri had been asking for. Simone Cinquegrano failed to clear, Gianluca Gaetano pounced and slid Giacomo Raspadori in, and the finish came off the inside of the crossbar and down. Six minutes gone, 1-0, and a former Sassuolo forward had done it.

After the half-hour it drained away. Alberto Aquilani's side, playing their own first league game under a new coach, kept coming and levelled at 55' in the least glamorous way available: a Josh Doig long throw, a flick off Odilon Kossounou, and Cas Odenthal nodding it in from close range.

Sarri went to his bench and it answered within five minutes. Nikola Krstović, on with Charles De Ketelaere just after the hour, read a heavy touch from Macchioni, took the ball away on the break and made it 2-1 at 65'. Eljif Elmas, signed on loan from RB Leipzig days earlier, came on at 82' for his debut.

"We were focused for the first 30 minutes and allowed practically nothing, but then as the game wore on, we started to suffer in defence."

— Maurizio Sarri, Atalanta coach

That is a fair reading of it. Sassuolo lost a game they shaded almost everywhere, and Aquilani will point at two defensive lapses as the whole difference. Atalanta, three points up and not remotely convincing, will take it — this was also a first clean start after the flat 0-0 Conference League play-off draw with Hapoel Tel-Aviv three days earlier. ⚫🔵

Match facts

• 6' — Giacomo Raspadori (Atalanta), assist Gianluca Gaetano
• 55' — Cas Odenthal (Sassuolo), from a Josh Doig long throw
• 65' — Nikola Krstović (Atalanta)
• Half-time: Atalanta 1-0 Sassuolo
• No yellow or red cards shown. Referee: Valerio Crezzini
• New Balance Arena, Bergamo — Serie A matchday 1, Sunday 23 August 2026. Attendance 20,828

What's next

Atalanta have the second leg against Hapoel Tel-Aviv first, on Thursday 27 August in Miskolc, Hungary, with the tie still goalless — then Bologna at home on Monday 31 August. Sassuolo go again sooner: Torino at the Mapei Stadium on Saturday 29 August, where a performance like this one deserves a better ending.

Five matchdays into Sarri's reign, that opening night reads less like the start of a trend and more like an outlier surrounded by trouble. Atalanta backed it up with a tight 1-0 win over Bologna, but then lost three in a row — 1-2 away to Roma, 1-2 at home to Cagliari, 0-2 away to Juventus — leaving them 11th on 6 points from five games, with five goals scored and seven conceded. Two wins, both by a single goal, bookend a run that has otherwise gone the same way it nearly did against Sassuolo: chances conceded, games lost on fine margins.

Sassuolo's own five matchdays have swung further in both directions. Aquilani's side answered the Bergamo defeat with a 2-1 win over Torino, drew 2-2 at Bologna, then beat Juventus 3-2 at the Mapei Stadium before losing 1-2 away to Monza. That leaves them 10th on 7 points — one place and one point above Atalanta, with nine scored and nine conceded, almost the mirror image of the tight defensive numbers Carnesecchi and his back line produced on matchday 1. The side that had 22 shots and 2.73 xG in Bergamo and still lost has since scored freely; the side that rode two moments of quality to win it has since struggled to find them again.