Raimondo hat-trick exposes Sassuolo errors as Frosinone climb to fourth
Antonio Raimondo scored three times as Frosinone beat Sassuolo 4-2, with repeated defensive mistakes from visiting goalkeeper Arijanet Muric central to the result, Football Italia reports.
Frosinone moved into the Serie A top four on Friday evening after beating Sassuolo 4-2 at the Stadio Benito Stirpe, with Antonio Raimondo scoring all three of his goals from situations created by Sassuolo mistakes, according to Football Italia.
The win put right a 3-0 defeat to Napoli in Frosinone's previous league outing. Before that setback, Massimiliano Alvini's side had beaten Fiorentina, Venezia and Como, form that earned Alvini the Serie A coach of the month award for September, Football Italia reports.
Sassuolo arrived having drawn 1-1 with Milan the previous weekend, lost 2-1 to Monza, beaten Juventus 3-2 and drawn 2-2 with Bologna, a run that left them without a settled defensive identity heading into the match.
Muric's errors opened the floodgates
Sassuolo's goalkeeper, Arijanet Muric, was directly implicated in three of Frosinone's four goals. The opener came after Muric tried to play out from the back, found Darryl Bakola under pressure inside his own area, and saw the midfielder dispossessed, allowing Giacomo Calò to finish into an unguarded net after nine minutes.
Bakola atoned for his error minutes later, winning the ball back himself and sending Domenico Berardi clear to round goalkeeper Lorenzo Palmisani and level the scores at 15 minutes.
Frosinone's response came from further Muric errors rather than sustained pressure. For the second goal, the goalkeeper failed to beat Raimondo to a cross dropping on the edge of the six-yard box and spilled it into the striker's path. For the third, a weak backwards header from Cas Odenthal caught Muric out again, and Raimondo read the bounce to poke home his second of the night before half-time.
That sequence meant Frosinone led 3-1 inside half an hour despite Sassuolo having created the game's first clear chance through their own pressing error rather than a settled attacking move.
Raimondo punishes Sassuolo's collapse
Sassuolo did not fold completely. Kristian Thorstvedt and Sebastiano Esposito combined in a quick one-two that bypassed three Frosinone defenders, allowing the Norwegian midfielder to run through and beat Palmisani in the 37th minute, making it 3-2 and setting up a genuinely open first half.
Muric had to save well at his near post to deny Raimondo immediately from the restart that followed Thorstvedt's goal, underlining how little defensive control either side had established by that point.
Raimondo completed his hat-trick ten minutes into the second half, converting after a corner's second phase saw Giorgi Kvernadze cross and Farès Ghedjemis force a save from Muric that rebounded straight back into the striker's path. It was the third time in the match that a loose ball in the Sassuolo box had fallen for the same player, a pattern that speaks to how often the visitors failed to clear their lines decisively rather than any single lapse in concentration.
Sassuolo had a route back into the game five minutes after the restart, when Romano Schmid, still searching for his first Serie A goal, forced a strong one-handed save from Muric's opposite number, Palmisani, from distance. It proved the closest the visitors came to a third goal.
Frosinone's rise and Sassuolo's drift
The numbers from the match tell a mixed story about control. Sassuolo had more of the ball, 58% possession to Frosinone's 42%, and more shots overall, 21 to 14. But Frosinone were the sharper side in front of goal, registering ten shots on target to Sassuolo's seven, according to the match statistics reported by Football Italia.
That gap between territorial dominance and clinical finishing reflects the pattern of the match itself. Sassuolo had the ball more but repeatedly gifted possession in dangerous areas, while Frosinone, with a fraction of the ball, scored four times from four distinct defensive breakdowns.
The result lifts Frosinone to fourth in Serie A on 13 points from seven matches, a striking return for a side back in the top flight this season. Raimondo had already been named the division's rising star for September before kick-off, and his treble builds on that recognition with a performance built almost entirely on exploiting Sassuolo's hesitancy at the back.
Sassuolo remain on eight points in 11th place, with nine matches still to play. For a side that has shown they can score against strong opposition, having beaten Juventus earlier in the campaign, the recurring defensive errors in this match will be the more pressing concern heading into their next fixtures.