Pro Patria made light work of Gozzano in a club friendly on Tuesday, running out 3-1 winners at the Stadio Gozzano. The hosts took control early and never looked back, closing out a comfortable victory over visitors who could only muster a late reply. And here's the thing, it was a match that showed what happens when one side wants it more than the other.
The opening goal came at the thirty-first minute, a moment that set the tone for the rest of the contest. Pro Patria worked the ball into space and finished clinically, putting themselves ahead without fuss. The home side had opened talks with Gozzano's defence and found the gap.
Then came the second half and the hosts rolled the dice with tempo. Within a minute of each other, at fifty-two and fifty-three minutes, they struck again. Two goals in sixty seconds that effectively killed the game. By then, Gozzano were sat deep and soaking it up, but there was little structure to their defence.
Gozzano got one back at the eighty-eighth minute, a late consolation that did little to change the narrative. The visitors had not travelled to make up the numbers, but they could not find a way back into a match that had slipped away. To be fair, they lacked the teeth to trouble Pro Patria's back line.
The statistics told the story of a one-sided affair. Pro Patria enjoyed sixty per cent possession and registered 125 attacks compared to Gozzano's 86. It was a disparity that reflected in the scoreline — many chances went begging for the visitors.
For Pro Patria, the result extended a positive run. They had beaten Imperio 2-1 last week before that stutter against Cremonese. Gozzano, meanwhile, could only point to a goalless draw with Varese from 2021 as their most recent outing.