Daniel Maldini's birthday goal caps Cagliari's best Serie A start in half a century

Cagliari's remarkable revival under Fabio Pisacane

The Sardinians have finished in the upper half of Serie A only once in the last 30 years. Champions of Italy in 1970, they have scarcely made it into another title conversation since. But they began this season with four wins from five matches, their best start to a top-flight campaign for more than half a century.

The first signs of a project coming together came under Fabio Pisacane, a popular former player who returned as assistant coach in 2022 and then worked with the academy for two years before leading the first team in 2025. An extraordinary individual, who earned the Guardian's first-ever Player of the Year award in 2016, Pisacane lived with Guillain-Barré syndrome as a teenager, becoming paralysed and spending 20 days in a coma, but recovered and ascended Italian football's lower divisions to make his Serie A debut at 30. Along the way, he made headlines for reporting an attempt by a Ravenna director to bribe him to throw a match in the third tier.

"I've worked with many great coaches in my career," said the Cagliari midfielder Harry Winks in a recent interview. "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, the former England international previously of Tottenham and Leicester, is now 30 and enjoying his football on the island of Sardinia. Most of Cagliari's regulars are 25 and younger, including the pair who combined to carve open Juventus's defence — Daniel Maldini and Paul Mendy.

Maldini steps out of the family shadow

There was not much more than 15 minutes gone against Juventus when Daniel Maldini cut in from the left. His initial shot from the corner of the box looked optimistic but it pinged back on to him from a defender and then to his teammate Paul Mendy, who held off a marker brilliantly and returned the ball to Maldini for a close-range finish. A fourth consecutive Serie A game with a goal for the forward, and an excellent way to celebrate his 25th birthday.

To say that these have been a rollercoaster few weeks would be some understatement. Maldini had his driving licence confiscated last month after crashing his car and failing a breathalyser test in an incident that was reported to have left five people with minor injuries. Subsequent hospital tests for narcotics returned negative, and he was called up to the first Italy squad since Roberto Mancini's reappointment as national team manager.

Maldini, son of the great Milan defender Paolo, has often been dismissed by his critics as "un raccomandato" — someone who owes their opportunities to knowing the right people. Or, in his case, being part of the right family. Not just a nepo baby but a nepo grandbaby, whose grandfather Cesare won a European Cup with Milan and whose dad repeated that feat five times more.

Daniel, who grew up in Milan's academy and made his senior debut for them as long ago as 2020, never cut it at San Siro and has bounced since then from Spezia to Empoli, Monza, Atalanta and Lazio without ever finding his stride.

But Pisacane has been adamant from the start about the player's potential, highlighting the way he connects lines of midfield and attack. The manager has not been shy about addressing shortcomings, too, stressing that Maldini needs to be more consistent in his application. Pisacane has been getting the best of him in a system that allows freedom to move between the wing and a more conventional No 10's space.

Maldini lined up with his Cagliari teammate Alessandro Romano for Italy's 3-1 home win over Turkey — the first time in more than half a century, since 1972, that two of the club's players have started a competitive game together for the Azzurri.

A team of individuals thriving

It is a similar story all throughout the team of individuals thriving in roles that suit them. Winks's unshowy work in front of the defence allows the 20-year-old Romano more freedom to get up and down the pitch. The 19-year-old Mendy is growing in confidence as a target man. And goalkeeper Elia Caprile has been magnificent.

Pisacane has taken Cagliari to six wins and a draw from their last eight matches, dating to last season. Only Roma have picked up more points in that stretch. After Sunday's results, Cagliari sit fourth in Serie A with 13 points from six games.