Cagliari Calcio 0-2 Bologna FC 1909: Serie A Match Report, 24 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.

Third visit, third 0-2: Cagliari Calcio 0-2 Bologna FC 1909. Bologna's two earlier trips to Sardinia on record, in October 2024 and October 2025, ended the same way, both with Bologna a goal up at half-time. This one had a different shape: 0-0 at the break, with both goals coming after it.

On the table, Cagliari were the stronger side going in, eighth on 13 points with a goal difference of minus one, while Bologna were fifteenth on five points, minus four, with one win from seven. But Cagliari came in off a 4-0 defeat at Monza five days earlier, the first match this season in which they had conceded more than once, and this was a second straight defeat without a goal. Bologna, scored against in every one of their seven matches, kept their first clean sheet.

The meetings are now one-sided. Bologna are unbeaten in five on record, four wins and a draw, and Cagliari have scored once across the five. Last season's final positions fit that: Bologna eighth on 56 points, Cagliari fourteenth on 43. This season's table still has them the other way round, but the gap is down to five points.

Bologna move to eight points from eight matches, and both of their wins have come away from home, at Lecce and here. A point a game is still well short of last season's 56 from 38, and two points from four home matches remains the bigger problem; one clean sheet does not change it.

Cagliari stay on 13 points from eight, still ahead of last season's pace, but two defeats in five days have turned a goal difference of plus three into minus three. Six goals in eight matches is the number that matters now. The start was built on conceding almost nothing, and in the last two matches they have conceded six and scored none. Thirty rounds remain, so neither season is close to decided, but the defensive record that carried Cagliari's start has not survived the week.

Our preview's call was Under 2.5 Goals at 1.65.

The strongest-sounding strand was the weakest. When the preview was written, Cagliari had never conceded twice in a match; Monza then scored four past them before this kick-off, and Bologna scored two here. What kept the total low was the other half of Cagliari's record, an attack with six goals in seven, and a head-to-head in which they had scored once in four meetings. So the match was low-scoring because one side could not score, not because both defences held. The preview's own caveat, that the line sat one goal from the typical outcome of this fixture, was its most accurate sentence. High confidence asked a lot of a line that close.

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