Daniel Maldini scores as Cagliari draw 1-1 with Juventus in Serie A on Sunday night
Daniel Maldini scored for Cagliari in their 1-1 Serie A draw with Juventus on Sunday night, extending his run to a goal in four consecutive league games and marking the strike on his 25th birthday.
Cagliari have started the season strongly, recording four wins from five matches — their best opening to a top-flight campaign for more than half a century — after ending last season with four wins in their final seven games. The Sardinians have finished in the upper half of Serie A only once in the last 30 years and were champions of Italy in 1970; Fabio Pisacane returned to the club as assistant coach in 2022, worked with the academy for two years and took charge of the first team in 2025.
Maldini’s goal came just after the quarter-hour mark when he cut in from the left; his initial shot bounced off a defender to Paul Mendy, who held off a marker and fed the ball back for Maldini’s close-range finish, after which the forward slid to his knees and rolled onto his back in celebration. The match finished 1-1.
Maldini’s career has included a senior debut for Milan in 2020 and subsequent spells at Spezia, Empoli, Monza, Atalanta and Lazio without establishing himself at San Siro. His driving licence was confiscated last month after he crashed his car and failed a breathalyser test in an incident reported to have left five people with minor injuries; hospital tests for narcotics returned negative.
He was called up to the first Italy squad since Roberto Mancini’s reappointment as national team manager and started alongside Cagliari team-mate Alessandro Romano in the 3-1 home win over Turkey — the first time since 1972 that two of the club’s players have started a competitive game together for Italy. Pisacane has repeatedly highlighted Maldini’s ability to connect midfield and attack while also urging greater consistency from him.
Pisacane has been credited with tactical acumen and getting the best from his squad; Harry Winks said in a recent interview: "I’ve worked with many great coaches in my career. Coach Pisacane is certainly at the very top level … Since I arrived here, he has already improved everyone, myself included. I really enjoy working with him; I think he can reach the very top of the sport." Winks’s unshowy work in front of the defence has allowed Romano more freedom to get up and down the pitch, the 19-year-old Paul Mendy is growing into a target man, and goalkeeper Elia Caprile produced a string of important saves against Juventus.
Juventus came to life in the second half, with Caprile denying Edon Zhegrova and then surviving Randal Kolo Muani’s close-range finish after Kerim Alajbegovic’s cross; Juventus also hit the crossbar and Caprile parried Nick Woltemade’s follow-up, while a later point-blank stop on Muani came when the forward was in an offside position. After the final whistle both Pisacane and Juventus manager Luciano Spalletti were shown red cards following a post-game confrontation; Spalletti later said he had been praising Pisacane for his player’s cleverness at time-wasting, and Pisacane was overheard asking: "What did I do?"
Pisacane has led Cagliari to six wins and a draw from their last eight matches, dating back to last season, a run in which only Roma have accumulated more points.