Fiorentina will try to bounce back from a poor Serie A opener at Cagliari by putting Polissya to bed in the second leg of the Conference League playoff. The Viola strolled to a 0-3 win in the first leg and have every expectation of finishing the job in their first “home” game of the season, although the Vovny won’t go quietly.
What will be quiet is the Mapei, where Fiorentina is playing due to the ongoing construction at the Artemio Franchi. The Curva Fiesole is “closed” for this one following clashes
with Real Betis fans last year; in practice, that means that supporters groups aren’t allowed in, so there are only about 3500 fans expected to make the trip across the Apennines, with a token visiting section making the trek from Zhytomyr.
The match will be played on Thursday, 28 August 2025, at 6:00 PM GMT/2:00 PM EST at the Mapei Stadium in Sassuolo. The forecast calls for a brutally humid day, with drizzle throughout, so don’t be surprised if the players can’t maintain their intensity for 90 minutes. It’s going to be awfully gross out there.
Three things to watch for
1. Temperature rise, turn it up the heat, feel the pressure. Like I said earlier, the biggest part of this game might be the weather. The pitch will be a sauna and we’ll get to see if the purple shirts are as transparent as their white counterparts. The limits of human endurance mean that Fiorentina will probably have to pick and choose when to do its running and when to sit back and soak up pressure.
It’s not just the climate, though. Polissya didn’t have a game this weekend and thus could have much fresher legs, although the long trip could peg them back physically. The Ukrainians also have nothing to lose and could go all out, hoping to create a miracle or at least leave an impression. That means we could see a very, ahem, rugged approach, especially after the Viola struggled with midfield physicality on Sunday.
Pioli will need his guys to match that intensity, or at least keep their heads and not retaliate. Staying cool when it’s hot out is hard. The only positive is that Polissya boss Ruslan Rotan has to plan for a trip to league leaders Dynamo Kyiv on Sunday, so he might throw in the towel for this one in hopes of getting the domestic campaign back on track.
2. Do you believe in life after Moise? Moise Kean’s suspended after swinging an elbow at Eduard Sarapiy (kind of justified, honestly), so Stefano Pioli gets to figure out what this attack looks like without its superstar. Roberto Piccoli probably isn’t ready to start, and Albert Guðmundsson probably needs a break. My guess is that the front two is Edin Džeko and Jacopo Fazzini, with Piccoli making his debut off the bench.
Pioli will have to figure out how to generate something approximating a threat without Kean’s threat in behind, as Džeko’s not that kind of player anymore and Fazzini’s a converted midfielder. Maybe we’ll see a more defined 3-4-2-1 in an effort to get another player supporting Džeko (Rolando Mandragora? Cher Ndour? Abdelhamid fucking Sabiri?), but there still has to be some sort of vertical movement or Polissya will pin the Viola way too deep and make this way closer than it ought to be.
3. Awfully different without you. Pioli needs to rotate his side quite a bit here. Kean’s suspended but Guðmundsson, Dodô, Nicolò Fagioli, Marin Pongračić, and Simon Sohm have all played 180 minutes in the past week. That’s half the lineup already needing a break. I’m not sure how the mister plans to deal with this, but my guess is we’ll see Fabiano Parisi, Rolando Mandragora, Mattia Viti, and Džeko start. Outcasts like Niccolò Fortini, Amir Richardson, and Alessandro Bianco could even get a chance.
This won’t just change the attack, of course. It’ll change every dynamic on the pitch as guys get their first competitive minutes as part of an unfamiliar lineup. Maybe Pioli’s not too worried about this one, given the scoreline, and wants to save his important players for Sunday’s tilt at Torino. We’ve seen that kind of thinking backfire badly, though, and being forced to throw the big names on in the second half to hang on would be be evidence that things aren’t going well at all.
Possible lineups
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Ted’s Memorial Blind Guess Department
Once again, the bookies back Fiorentina pretty strongly. Even without Kean, the talent gulf is probably too much, especially after the first leg. That said, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Polissya come away with a 0-1 win if the Viola send out a weird XI designed to minimize damage rather than add to the aggregate scoreline; the hosts’ mission isn’t winning so much as not losing by very much.
Even so, I’ll go for a 2-1 win for the good guys, with Džeko opening his account in the first half and Mandragora settling it late, with a Gutsulyak goal sandwiched between them to give the visitors the slightest hope. I’m also expecting a pretty poor game, honestly. Between the heat, the distance traveled, the weird lineups, and the scoreline, this one’s probably going to feature a lot of aimless boots forward, minimal quality in the final third, and a lot of fouls in the middle.
Forza Viola!
