An immediate goal from summer signing and Italy international Davide Frattesi gave new Lazio head coach Gennaro Gattuso a 1-0 victory in his first Serie A match in charge away against Bologna at the Dall’Ara on Monday evening.
This was Domenico Tedesco’s first competitive match in charge of Bologna and Gattuso’s first league match as head coach of Lazio.
Tedesco handed a first league start to summer recruit Roberto Piccoli at centre-forward, while Gattuso named an unchanged starting XI despite Lazio’s Coppa Italia first-round defeat by Mantova last weekend, led by Matteo Cancellieri, Bobulaye Dia and Mattia Zaccagni in attack.
You can see how the action unfolded on the Football Italia Liveblog.
It was an end-to-end and evenly-contested first half at the Dall’Ara in an opening 45 minutes that was lacking in quality in either final third. The half-time stats tell the story: A 46:54 spread of possession, four shots for Bologna, five for Lazio but only one apiece on target, neither of which were particularly threatening.
Petty fouls also had an impact on the first half: There were five yellow cards dished out before the interval and Bologna head coach Tedesco was sent off in his first Serie A match in charge of the Rossoblu for his excessive complaints on the touchline.
Zaccagni squeezed a shot just wide of the post from the left-hand side of the area early on. Piccoli briefly threatened down at the other end with a swivelling half-volley from an awkward corner delivery.
Nadir Zortea came up with Bologna’s most threatening effort of the first half, but that was only because of an enormous deflection off Oliver Provstgaard that completely wrong-footed Christos Mandas in goal. He was relieved to see it bounce behind for a corner.
Boulaye Dia did have the ball in the back of the net midway through the half, but was clearly in an offside position when Danilho Doekhi sent a long ball over the top.
Lazio’s only shot on target of the first half came from a tamely-hit Pedraza shot from the edge of the area, which caused no issue at all for Lukasz Skorupski.
The first moment of real quality came from Lazio goalkeeper Christos Mandas just after half-time: Lewis Ferguson delivered the cross after a short, quick corner from Juan Miranda, and Mandas, back from his loan spell with Bournemouth, pulled out an excellent save at full stretch to stop Jens Odgaard’s header, which would have otherwise ended up in the bottom corner of the net.
The defining moment of the second half was the introduction of Italy international Frattesi, who has recently joined Lazio on loan with a buy option from Inter.
It took just four minutes for Frattesi to score with what was his first shot of the game, and his first in a competitive match for Lazio. Dia did excellently to send the Italian through on goal with a flick around the corner, and Frattesi made no mistake in dispatching past Skorupski with a first-time finish.
The best response that Bologna could come up with before full-time was a Federico Bernardeschi free-kick, which was tipped onto the post by the fingertip of the impressive Mandas a quarter of an hour before the 90th minute.
We are only one game into the 2026-27 Serie A season, but Lazio currently find themselves in joint-sixth in the standings, while Bologna end the opening weekend in joint-15th.
Bologna 0-1 Lazio
Frattesi 59’.
Player statistic
| 22' | Romano Floriani Mussolini | |||
| Oussama El Azzouzi | 34' | |||
| 34' | Boulaye Dia | |||
| Nicolò Cambiaghi | 41' | |||
| 44' | Matteo Cancellieri |
| 59' |  |
Davide Frattesi (Assist: Boulaye Dia) | ||
| Torbjørn Heggem | 83' | |||
| Jens Odgaard |  |
83' |
