Raffaele Palladino chopped and changed quite a bit, making 7 changes from the side that faced Bologna on Sunday. The most surprising was perhaps Pietro Terracciano in goal after the club had spoken about Tommaso Martinelli serving as David de Gea’s lieutenant.
The real story was probably the home fans, though. The Estadio Dom Afonso Henriques was packed with 30000 fans hoping to push their team to its first-ever European knockout stage and they created quite an atmosphere.
Fiorentina started out a bit sloppy but settled in after a few minutes. Christian Kouame had a great early chance but fully tripped on the ball in the box instead of shooting. That was a rare foray forward, though, as the Viola were unable to get out, constantly losing the ball; the defenders’ passes were picked off time and again, while the midfielders were caught trying to dribble over and over. The hosts had half a dozen chances presented before they took advantage, with Pietro Comuzzo’s pass intercepted. Kaio Cesar played it to Gustavo Silva, who tapped home from close range. It was all bad. All of it.
If you were expecting that to wake the visitors up, you were disappointed. The team continued losing the ball way too easily over and over—Comuzzo looked particularly uncomfortable trying to pass into midfield as the left centerback—and the midfielders continued to miss passes. Lucas Martinez Quarta delivered the worst pass from a defender in recent memory but Silva stumbled while 1-v-1 and tried to sell it for a penalty, earning a booking. When the whistle finally went, Fiorentina’s players trudged in knowing they’d been utterly outplayed in every phase, failing to register a shot on goal.
Palladino brought on Yacine Adli and Luca Ranieri at the break but the same problems persisted, albeit not quite as obvious as Vitoria sat deeper and focused less on breaking. Fiorentina made that approach easy by remaining miles off the pace; it wasn’t until the 67th minute that the visitors got a shot on goal, and then it was a 1-v-1 that Moise Kean really should’ve buried. Make no mistake, though: the hosts should’ve been up by multiple goals as they carved through a hapless Viola defense, which made Rolando Mandragora’s scrappy equalizer even funnier.
Vitoria seemed slightly stunned but went hunting for the late winner, leaving themselves open on the break, much to Fiorentina’s delight. The visitors withstood a bit of pressure, countered, and then killed the game off neatly enough for the sort of utterly BS away result that good teams always seem to get. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t even good but it was enough.
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