Of all the surprises that Serie A have provided this season, the travails of Fiorentina have to be one of the biggest.
In the last three years, La Viola had been to two UEFA Conference League finals and a semifinal, and last season finished only five points out of the top four. But the departure of coach Raffaele Palladino after disagreements with the front office turned into a major blow. After 11 game,s they had already gone through one coach (Stefano Pioli) and were rooted to the bottom of the table,
without a win and having only earned five points.
It felt like the perfect setup on Saturday night for Juventus to come off the international break and show some improvement under Luciano Spalletti.
But, as they have so often done against teams that they ought to beat handily, they played down to their competition. Their energy felt nonexistent. Their attacks were predictable and bogged down often. True, they were royally screwed by a preposterous VAR call that deprived them of a penalty in the early phases of the game, but against a team that has been by all measures the worst in Serie A, they only managed to poke their noses in front in the dying seconds of the first half off a wicked long-distance shot.
But the Old Lady’s longstanding propensity to shoot themselves in the foot came roaring back to bite them in the ass. Their lead evaporated within minutes of the restart after a horrific mistake by one of their most consistent players, and they could never find a way to break through Fiorentina’s league-worst defense for a winner. Their third consecutive draw under Spalletti was devoid of the hope that shone around the edges of the first two, and once again raised more questions than answers going into a big Champions League showdown midweek.
Spalletti retained the 3-4-2-1 that he inherited from Igor Tudor, though he was without the services of two of his center-backs in Daniele Rugani and Bremer, as well as Arkadiusz Milik and Carlo Pinsoglio. Michele Di Gregorio started in goal, with Pierre Kalulu, Lloyd Kelly, and Teun Koopmeiners arrayed in front of him. Andrea Cambiaso and Filip Kostic played at the wing-back spots, bracketing the usual midfield pivot of Khéphren Thuram and Manuel Locatelli. Weston McKennie and Kenan Yildiz backed up Dusan Vlahovic, who was trying for his first goal against his former team in eight tries.
Paolo Vanoli was even newer on his job that Spalletti was on his, taking charge of only one game before the international break. Robin Gosens, Tariq Lamptey, and Christian Kouame were injured and unable to contribute to the team’s 3-5-2, which had three former Juventus talents in it. David De Gea was between the sticks, screened by Marin Pongracic, Luca Ranieri, and Pablo Marí. Dodô and Fabiano Parisi played wide around the midfield of Rolando Mandragora, Nicolò Fagioli (sobs quietly) and Simon Sohm. Moise Kean returned from injury and started up top along with Roberto Piccoli.
The early stages of the game were uneventful in the extreme, but things picked up in the 14th minute when Vlahovic received a long pass from Locatelli that carried him to the byline in the Fiorentina penalty area. Vlahovic then pulled out an audacious bit of skill, nutmegging Marí with a back-heel and then spinning past him to dribble inside. Marí had no choice but to haul him to the ground, and referee Daniele Doveri immediately pointed to the spot. But as Vlahovic got ready to set up for the penalty, a VAR check popped up on screen. There had been a lot of contact between the two men as they battled, but to say that Vlahovic was the one who committed a foul on Marí, as Doveri somehow contrived to rule after a trip to the pitchside monitor, is patently absurd.
Juve had been deprived of a perfectly legitimate penalty, but that wasn’t the end of the incident. De Gea wasn’t given the signal to restart play, and at first it looked like players were still arguing with Doveri over the VAR call. But it eventually became clear that discriminatory chants directed at Vlahovic were coming from the fans behind Fiorentina’s goal. A warning was broadcast over the public address system, and Fiorentina captain Ranieri had to go to the curva and plead with the fans to stop. It took almost five minutes for the fans to behave themselves enough for play to resume after a disruption that has unfortunately become a regular occurrence when Vlahovic has returned to the Stadio Artemio Franchi.
It wasn’t until the 24th minute that either team attempted a shot, when Cambiaso’s effort was blocked by Ranieri. Kean then set off alarm bells when he easily beat Koopmeiners on a counterattack but cracked his shot off the crossbar.
Mandragora bent a free kick just wide of the near post at the half-hour, and five minutes later Vlahovic was served a scoring chance on a plate when he took a long ball from De Gea and turned on Marí with almost contemptuous ease. One-on-one with De Gea, he elected to dribble around the stranded Spaniard, but just as he was about to shoot Pongracic, running hard to try and recover, gave him a bump that threw him off just enough to carry him closer to the byline and cut his angle to the point that when he did shoot, it went into the side netting. It was a chance that a player of Vlahovic’s pedigree absolutely has to score, but as he too often does with the easy ones, he failed to convert.
The long stoppage for the VAR check and the racist chanting resulted in six minutes being tacked on to the first half, and it was Juve’s other Serbia international that broke the deadlock in the dying seconds of stoppage time.
It came a little bit out of nowhere, after Locatelli’s juggling half-volley struck Vlahovic on its way to goal and ricocheted to Kostic, who hit a 25-yard cross-goal shot through a crowd of bodies that skipped into the net, giving Kostic his second goal in two appearances and sending Juve into the locker room with the lead.
It didn’t last long.
Just three minutes into the second half De Gea sent a ball upfield from his own box. Koopmeiners won the first ball, but Thuram made a hash of the second. Instead of heading to a teammate, he popped the ball straight into the air, landing at the feet of Kean. He quickly passed the ball to Mandragora, who took a touch to settle himself before unleashing a rocket from even farther out that streaked into the top corner.
Fiorentina tried to press their momentum, and for the next 10 to 15 minutes were clearly the better team on the field. Juve were pinned back and seemed not to have an answer. Di Gregorio palmed a worm-burner from Kean wide, and a mad scramble in the six-yard box after a corner somehow ended with the Bianconeri getting the ball clear.
Things slowly began to even out as the match progressed. Vlahovic tried to take a direct free kick low and around the wall, but the ball was deflected by Sohm. The big striker then tapped a long ball back to Yildiz, who charged from his own half and shook off two defenders before spurning help from Vlahovic and firing from the top of the penalty arc, but he didn’t catch it well and sent out a tame shot that De Gea collected easily.
Neither team was particularly dangerous in the game’s final 30 minutes. Miretti hit the side netting with 15 minutes after being slipped into the right channel by Koopmeiners after a free kick, and five minutes later Francisco Conceição nearly put a stamp on the game from the bench when his cross was deflected into the air by Ranieri into the path of McKennie, who rose up and fired a header from six yards that De Gea just managed to palm over the bar.
The only two shots either team took for the rest of the game were made by Juventus, who had two shots blocked in quick succession halfway through stoppage time. As Doveri brought the game to a close, fans were left frustrated with yet another draw—this one without the positive feelings that came out of the last two. Whereas those were down to a pair of keepers who played as if they’d just picked up a star in a Mario Bros. game, this one was down to ineffectiveness up front and mistakes going back, adding more and more questions as to how the team could improve before it’s too late.
