Atalanta 0-1 Bologna: Super sub Castro sends visitors into Coppa Italia semis

Santiago Castro emerged from the bench to send Bologna through to the Coppa Italia semi-finals, with his late goal earning his side a 1-0 win over Atalanta on Tuesday.

Vincenzo Italiano’s dominated for much of the match and were rewarded for their efforts 10 minutes from time, and will face either Juventus or Empoli in the final four.

Atalanta were the first to register a shot on target, with Charles De Ketelaere testing visiting goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski early on before Davide Zappacosta fired over.

But Bologna grew into the game and almost went ahead before the break, but Jhon Lucumi’s strike was comfortably gathered by Rui Patricio.

Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were aiming to bounce back from consecutive draws to Barcelona and Torino, but were unable to create any clear-cut chances after half-time.

And with both sides going in search of a winner, Italiano turned to his bench and introduced Castro, who made an instant impact at the Gewiss Stadium.

Just two minutes after his arrival into the game, the Argentine headed Charalampos Lykogiannis’s inviting delivery beyond Patricio at the back post to seal the victory.

Data Debrief: A long time coming

After being knocked out of the Champions League last week, Bologna responded in style to return to a stage of the Coppa Italia they have not seen for some time.

Indeed, Bologna will take part in the semi-finals of the competition for the first time since 1999 under Carlo Mazzone. The Rossoblu had been eliminated in their previous two quarter-finals, but made sure there was no three-peat this time around.

And the visitors were worthy of their win, registering an expected goals (xG) total of 1.43 from their 13 efforts to Atalanta’s 0.87 from the same number of attempts.