After a chaotic and unimaginably lucky draw against Bologna in the Derby dell’Appennino on Sunday, Fiorentina hits the road again, hoping to earn its first win in Serie A this season. Given that Inter
Milan is the opponent, that’s the least likely outcome, but we’re all idiots and can’t help ourselves hoping for better. The match will be played on Wednesday, 28 October 2025, at 19:45 GMT/3:45 PM EST at the Stadio San Siro in Milan. The forecast calls for a chilly evening with a chance of drizzle, so it won’t be fun for the 500 or so Viola fans expected to attend.
Three things to watch for
1. Mistakes at the back
I wrote about this yesterday in the aftermath of the Bologna game but a lot of Fiorentina’s trouble comes from the woeful performances of Pablo Marí and Marin Pongračić at the back. They were largely responsible for both of the Rossoblù goals and have just been very bad all year. Occasionally, they can get away with mistakes. Here, though, they can’t.
Inter Milan isn’t quite in its Simone Inzaghi pomp but Christian Chivu has kept the attack humming right along. This is Serie A’s most productive attack in both goals scored and xG, led by Lautaro Martínez (5 goals in his last 6 games against the Viola) and ably supported by Ange-Yoan Bonny and Francesco Pio Esposito, along with a whirling menace of wingbacks and midfielders. The Nerazzurri press well and finish clinically; they’ll punish any errors at the back and will put the screws to Marí and Pongračić. That pair needs to prove it can go 90 minutes without a major cockup. Good luck.
2. Some legginess
Both these teams are playing twice a week, although the hosts get an extra day of rest after losing to Napoli on Saturday. Still, there could be some heavy legs on both sides as absences have forced some key players to play a lot of minutes over the past month. Yall know that I’m not a huge believer in vibes as an analytic category but I feel like the home team tends to get an extra boost in these situations of mutual exhaustion as the crowd can provide that extra burst of energy that makes all the difference.
That said, I’m expecting some rotation in this one. My money’s on Davide Frattesi and/or Petar Sučić in midfield for Inter, with Luis Henrique getting a rare start on the right due to Denzel Dumfries’ balky hamstring. Trying to predict Fiorentina’s XI is like choosing the prettiest turd in the portable toilet at a music festival, but Hans Nicolussi Caviglia and Robin Gosens could get a rest. I also wouldn’t be shocked if Pioli picked Pietro Comuzzo over one of the wonder twins Marí and Pongračić at the back, although the mister’s been inexplicably down on the Ginger Prince all year.
3. Refereeing shenanigans
I almost never write about the refereeing in Serie A because I find it to be a boring topic, the refuge of idiots whose only ability to understand the game is to assign some sort of morality to the team they support and then set up nefarious forces in opposition. It’s the shit for the lowest common denominator, the knuckle-draggers who post the dumbest shit on Twitter, and those are depths I don’t wish to plumb.
In this one, though, it’s worth pointing out. AC Milan’s absurd penalty against Fiorentina (Santi Giménez is still in a medically-induced coma and fighting for his life after Fabiano Parisi’s savage assault) got canceled out the next week as Federico Bernardeschi had a stone-cold penalty denied after Abdelhamid Sabiri clearly hacked him in the box and received a couple PKs of their own. The Viola refereeing Karma-meter has reset to 0.
Inter, on the other hand, were on the wrong end of Giovanni di Lorenzo’s pathetic dive and have justifiably been baying about the standard of officiating for the past couple days. The wheels of justice don’t always grind fast but, in such an optics-obsessed arena, they just might pick up the pace a little. To be clear, I’m not accusing the FIGC of corruption (okay, that’s low-hanging fruit), but these things have a tendency to work themselves out in Italy perhaps more than in other places.
Possible lineups
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Ted’s Memorial Blind Guess Department
It’s no surprise that Inter Milan is heavily favored to win this one. The hosts are still seething about the loss to Napoli on Saturday, providing plenty of motivation to add the usual advantages of playing at home and being a flat out much better team. It’s unthinkable that Fiorentina could finally grab its first league win in this one, simply unthinkable, and any bet to the contrary is just throwing money away.
Because I’m faithful to the TMBGD bit, though, I’ll call it a shocking 1-2 win for Fiorentina, with a fluke goal from Rolando Mandragora to open the scoring before Martínez equalizes. Inter will shell the Viola for the remainder of the game, which will include a David de Gea penalty save, before Kean grabs one on the break right at the death. And then the heavens will open and the angels descend and the guys who bullied me in middle school will publicly apologize and then I’ll wake up in this wretched world once again, looking for an escape that isn’t there. All we have is pain to let us know we’re alive, after all, and Fiorentina fans are more alive than any supporter base in Serie A right now.
Forza Viola!
