Staff Reporter.
(AFP) – Salernitana maintained their bold bid for Serie A survival on Monday with a 1-1 draw at Atalanta which pulled them closer to safety.
Mario Pasalic’s 88th-minute leveller denied Salernitana a fourth straight win after Ederson had poked them ahead just before the half hour but the draw moved them to within two points of Cagliari, who sit just outside the relegation zone.
Davide Nicola’s team host Cagliari this coming Sunday after playing their game in hand with Venezia on Thursday.
Fans packed into the away end applauded their team off the pitch after their long trip to the far north of Italy was rewarded with a spirited performance.
Atalanta keeper Juna Musso did well to keep out efforts from Emil Bohinen and Lassana Coulibaly early in the second half but the away side tired and had to hang in the face of persistent Atalanta attacks.
Gian Piero Gasperini’s side showed why they have only won four times at home all season and were saved from an embarrassing defeat by Croat Pasalic’s low drive.
They sit eighth and are struggling for a place in Europe next season after looking like title challengers before the turn of the year.
Before their recent unbeaten run Salernitana had been rooted to the bottom of Serie A for almost the entire season, and should Salernitana stay up it would be the second miracle escape act of coach Nicola’s career after he saved Crotone five years ago.
Under his charge Crotone won six of their last nine matches of the 2016/17 season, losing just one, and climbed out of the drop zone on the final day of the campaign.
Nicola had promised he would cycle the length of Italy to his hometown of Turin should his team stay up and he was as good as his word, making the 1 300 kilometre (808 mile) trip from the deep southern region of Calabria to Piedmont in the far north-west.
Now the 49-year-old has a real chance of saving a team which in December looked like it might be kicked out of the league as the club struggled to find a new owner.
In June Salernitana were placed in trust as Lazio president Claudio Lotito owned the club and Italian FA rules banned ownership of two teams in the same division.
Given a New Year’s Eve deadline to find a new owner or be booted out, Salernitana were saved at the last minute when Danilo Iervolino’s bid to buy the club was accepted.
Meanwhile Cagliari sacked coach Walter Mazzarri on Monday as the Serie A club try to avoid relegation ahead of crunch clashes with their rivals fighting the drop.
In a statement Cagliari said that Mazzarri had been “relieved of his duties as first team coach”, with Italian media reporting that youth team coach Alessandro Agostini would take charge of the team for the final three games of the season.
Mazzarri, 60, was fired after Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Verona – a seventh loss in eight matches – left 17th-placed Cagliari with the bottom three breathing down their neck.
Next weekend they travel to Salernitana, who sit just inside the drop zone with a game in hand and will move level on 28 points with the Sardinian team if they beat Atalanta on Monday night.
Elsewhere Bologna coach Sinisa Mihajlovic has been discharged from hospital after responding well to treatment for leukemia, the Serie A club said on Monday.
In a statement Bologna said that Mihajlovic had left the Sant’Orsola Hospital in the northern Italian city and was “in good condition”.
The Serbian, who has been battling the disease since 2019, had been hospitalised again in March due to a risk of a relapse.
Italian media reported that the 53-year-old would be rejoining his players for the final three matches of the current Serie A season with his team in 13th position.