AS Roma 4-2 Cagliari Calcio: Serie A Match Report, 27 October 2026

Our preview of this match was written on 18 October 2026 but only went live on 1 November, after the final whistle. Its pick is reviewed below as it was written, and it is left out of our win rate and bankroll.

Two halves of 2-1 made AS Roma 4-2 Cagliari Calcio. Roma led by that score at the interval and won the second half by it as well, six goals in a fixture whose previous four meetings on record had produced four between them: 0-0, 1-0, 1-0 and 2-0. In the two of those played in Rome, Cagliari had not scored. Here they scored in both halves and still lost by two. No goal times are on record, so whether they were ever level cannot be said; Roma led at the break and at the end.

Table and form both favoured the hosts. Roma started third on 18 points from eight matches, unbeaten, with a goal difference of plus 13. Cagliari started ninth on 13 points, minus three, after two defeats without a goal, 4-0 at Monza and 0-2 at home to Bologna. Their two goals at the Olimpico were their first since the 1-1 with Juventus on 11 October.

The less expected detail sits on Roma's side. They had conceded three goals in their first seven matches, then three in a 3-3 at Napoli on 24 October and two more here. Five in two games is no crisis for a club that finished third last season on 73 points with 31 conceded, but it is not the side that kept five clean sheets in its first seven.

Roma reach 21 points from nine, still unbeaten, which is 2.3 a game against the 1.9 that made them third last season. Nine rounds is too early to call that a title challenge, and the last two matches suggest the defence behind it is less settled than the first seven implied.

Cagliari's start is running in reverse. This was a third straight defeat, with ten goals conceded across the three, after three in their first six matches. Their 13 points from nine are still ahead of last season's rate, but the defensive numbers have drifted back: 13 conceded in nine is roughly the rate of the 53 in 38 they let in when finishing fourteenth. The start was built on goals they did not concede, and that part of it has gone.

Our preview's call was AS Roma Win at 1.57.

The preview argued for a narrow, defensive Roma win: five clean sheets in seven, a Cagliari attack scoring once a game, and two home meetings won without conceding. Much of that was dated by kick-off. Roma had since conceded three at Napoli, and Cagliari's away record, the risk the preview named, had broken at Monza, one of the two Cagliari matches it flagged between its writing and this one. The match then went against the defensive premise outright, with Cagliari scoring twice. What did fit was passing on under 2.5 goals because Roma's home matches kept going over the line; this was the fourth of five. High confidence leaned on a defensive picture that the matches before kick-off had already changed.

Verdict: not counted. The pick would have won, but the preview only went live after kick-off.