Serie B 22/23: road to Ascoli - Venezia

On Giornata 30 of the 2022/23 Serie B season, Venezia will be away against Ascoli, in twelfth place in the standings, for the last fixture before the spring international break.

Previous encounters

This will be the 22nd Serie B clash between Ascoli and Venezia: seven wins for the Bianconeri compared to eight for the Lagunari, and six draws.

Ascoli have scored in the last six matches against Venezia in Serie B; Venezia, on the other hand, did not score in the first leg (0-2) and could be out of goals for two matches in a row against the Bianconeri for the first time since the first two meetings between the teams in the competition, between 1992 and 1993.

Stats and trivia

Ascoli have lost their last two Serie B matches and have not reached three consecutive defeats in the competition since December 2020, under Delio Rossi.

In Ascoli's last three home games, only two goals have been scored, with the home side having gone two clean sheets. Overall, the Bianconeri are 18th in the table for home performance, while Venezia occupy 10th place for away performance.

Only Venezia (26) and Cosenza (23) have conceded more goals than Ascoli (22) in the second halves of this Serie B championship.

Ascoli have conceded just one goal from outside the box in this league, no team has done better (one also Genoa) - 3% of the goals conceded by the Bianconeri have been from distance (1/35), the lowest percentage in Serie B 2022/23.

Coaches and formations

Paolo Vanoli and Roberto Breda have never met in their coaching careers: neither of them was yet on the bench of their respective teams in the first round.

In the last match of the season, Roberto Breda reached the considerable milestone of 300 games as a coach in Serie B: his debut on the bench in the series dates back to 2010, with Reggina.

In the last three matches, coach Breda has adopted the 4-3-1-2, with Falzerano favoured as a number 10. Mister Vanoli, recently departing from the 3-5-2, has employed Denis Cheryshev as a trequartista in some variations on the 3-4-1-2.

Scorers

Thanks to his six goals, including two penalties, Cedric Gondo is Ascoli's top scorer. In the last league round, however, Michele Collocolo stood out: with his assist against Cagliari, he surpassed his active participation in the last Serie B championship: four goals and three winning passes in 28 appearances in 2022/23, three goals and three assists in 2021/22 (33 matches).

With three goals and two assists, Joel Pohjanpalo has been involved in five of Venezia's seven goals in 2023; in the period, only Andrés Tello (83%) has been involved in more of his team's goals in percentage terms than the Venetian's top scorer in Serie B (71%).