Cagliari edges past Lecce as Maldini's header settles it

A 28th-minute header from Daniel Maldini was all Cagliari needed to claim all three points at the Unipol Domus: 1-0 over Lecce, in a Serie A match the home side dominated where it mattered most even though the visitors held the ball for most of the night.

The goal came from a corner. Jacopo Fazzini whipped in a cross to the far post, and Maldini, left unmarked, made no mistake with a close-range header for the 1-0. It was reward for a first half in which Cagliari had already given warning signs: Alessandro Romano tried his luck from outside the box early on, while Maldini himself and Fazzini had also tested the target without finding the frame. Lecce answered through Lassana Coulibaly, Oumar Ngom and Nikola Stulic, but none of their efforts truly troubled Elia Caprile.

The second half opened with another scare for Lecce: Paul Mendy crashed a shot off the right post just moments after the restart. Maldini also had his chance, curling a free kick just wide of the left post in the 62nd minute. Cagliari kept pushing with attacking substitutions, bringing on Mattia Felici, Alieu Fadera, Roberto Gagliardini and Alessandro Sugamele, and continued to create chances, including one from Sugamele that Wladimiro Falcone tipped over the bar for a corner. Lecce, who by then had introduced Amar Fatah, Youssef Maleh, Konan N'Dri, Jamil Siebert and Medon Berisha, enjoyed their best spell late on, with a shot from Berisha also ending up in Caprile's hands, but they could not find an equalizer despite six minutes of stoppage time.

The numbers behind the result

Lecce controlled more of the ball, but Cagliari was the team that truly threatened. The hosts finished with double the shots and tripled the shots on target, on top of creating three clear-cut chances.

Our own expected goals estimate backs up that offensive edge for Cagliari: by our post-match calculation, the home side generated 1.921 xG against Lecce's 0.574, a gap that lines up fairly well with what unfolded on the field, with the hosts consistently threatening the opposing box in far more dangerous fashion.

The result, moreover, isn't far off from what we projected before kickoff: we gave Cagliari a 46% chance of winning, against 33% for a draw and 21% for a Lecce win, with expected goals of 1.24 for the home side and 0.75 for Lecce. The outcome was exactly the scenario we considered most likely.

What it means in the standings

With this result, Cagliari moves to 6 points in the competition, while Lecce stays at 3, with more losses than wins through their first three matches. The gap between the two sides in the table is just 3 points, a difference that's starting to draw lines in a standings table that still has plenty left to be written.