Fiorentina 3-2 Polissya: Match report

Pre-match

Stefano Pioli rotated out half his XI, handing first starts of the season (or, in some cases, the Viola career) to Pablo Marí, Mattia Viti, Fabiano Parisi, Rolando Mandragora, Jacopo Fazzini, and Edin Džeko. Ruslan Rotan, on the other hand, made a single change.

The biggest difference was that the weather was miserable—hot, muggy, and generally gross—but at least the sparse attendance from the first leg carried over: only 3500ish made the trek up to the Mapei, partly due to the distance and partly due to the stadium ban in effect after last year’s idiocy against Real Betis.

First half

Things started about as badly as they could’ve: Oleksandr Nazarenko scored in the 2nd minute. It was a bad backpass but it felt more like the inexorable will of the gods pressing down upon a team that had dared to raise itself above its station and had been ordered to pay the price. That impression was only reinforced 12 minutes later, when Oleksandr Andriyevskyi scored one of the most beautiful volleys you’ll ever see. It was as if Zeus himself had determined that the Viola needed to pay the price for some forgotten hubris and decided to smite, smite, and smite again.

If you thought Fiorentina’s players would wake up and pull their heads out of each other’s asses at this point, well, you don’t know our intrepid heroes. The first half remained a mess, with the hosts standing around on the ball at the back before either trying to work it through midfield (where Polissya would turn them over and race the other way) or thump it over the top for Cher Ndour to chase. It was about as grim as anything in recent memory and you had to wonder if Stefano Pioli was about to get a pink slip in the locker room.

Second half

Pioli brought on Robin Gosens and Albert Guðmundsson at the break and probably gave his guys the full hairdryer treatment because Fiorentina improved immeasurably. Polissya still had a couple of decent moments but now the good guys were fully in control and broke forward in disciplined and occasionally connected waves. Fazzini went on a mazy solo run from well inside his own half and hit the post, while Gosens bulleted a header straight at the goalkeeper. It felt like maybe, maybe it was coming.

Not surprisingly, it was Gosens—who always comes up nails when someone needs to step up—who popped a cross to the back post, where Dodô made no mistake and slotted home the volley. Just like that, the aggregate lead was back to 2.

It didn’t stay there for long, either. Pioli brought Luca Ranieri on for Viti, leading some particularly brain dead observers to criticize his substitutions, but the captain scored 6 seconds later, arriving at the back post to smash home a Gosens flick off a corner and put the tie to bed.

Džeko added the winner moments later off another corner, heading home from point blank range a ball that Polissya failed to clear; Ranieri was instrumental again, so turns out I’m the idiot. The ref blew it dead seconds later and that was that: a calm, composed, competent 3-2 win to win the tie 6-2 on aggregate and advance into the Conference League proper. Never in doubt.

Full time

Goals: Nazarenko 2’, Andriyevskyi 14’; Dodô 79’ (ass. Gosens), Ranieri 86’ (ass. Gosens), Džeko 89’

Cards: Talles Costa 45’, Karaman 84’

What’s next

The Conference League draw is tomorrow, so we’ll know what Fiorentina’s path is through the league phase, which is a phrase that still sounds stupid and bad to me but whatever. It’s also worth pointing out that Fiorentina’s now 4/4 advancing from the Conference League playoff into the competition proper, and that this is the first year they did so by more than a single goal margin on aggregate.

More immediately, Pioli and company need to turn their attention to Sunday’s clash against Torino. Inter Milan put 5 past il Toro a few days ago so this could be a good chance for the mister to get his first Serie A win of his second stint. If these Viola bozos can do it, we’ll go into the international break feeling somewhat less panicky, which sure would be nice.