Maccabi Haifa 3-4 Fiorentina: Match report and highlights

Pre-match

On a sopping wet night in Budapest and in front of less than 2500 fans at the Boszik Stadion, both sides made a fair number of changes to the XI that won at the weekend. For the good guys, it was Jonathan Ikoné, Rolando Mandragora, Alfred Duncan, and M’Bala Nzola coming into the side.

First half

We’d barely settled in when Nzola opened the scoring with a fantastic flicked header. Credit to Mandragora and Ikoné for finding Michael Kayode overlapping down the right, and the youngster dinked his cross in for Nzola to do the rest. It was about as perfect a start as Vincenzo Italiano could’ve asked for.

Perfection in this world, alas, is fleeting, and we sure found that out the hard way. Maccabi Haifa missed a sitter, albeit one that would’ve been negated by an offside, but that was the warning. The Greens equalized via a corner—Abdoulaye Seck tapped home a flick-on—but the real story was that Anan Khalaili was clearly offside, but referee Donatas Rumšas declined to disallow it even after a VAR check.

Fiorentina were unable to mount any sort of fightback, mostly because the pitch was simply disastrous and prevented anyone from playing the ball along the turf. The pattern was that the Viola would either thump it long and lose the second ball, setting themselves up to be countered, or try to play through the middle and lose it when it stuck to the ground or squirted away. The second goal at least came from something Maccabi Haifa did: Michael Kayode switched off and allowed Lior Kinda to slip past him and finish fantastically.

The next quarter hour looked pretty similar, honestly. Nikola Milenković decidedly lost his battle with the massive Frantzdy Pierrot, which wasn’t a great look, and everyone else outside maybe Nico González failed to react at all. When the whistle arrived, it was clear that Italiano needed to shake up just about everything.

Second half

The pitch remained the protagonist, preventing anyone from playing the ball at all, but referee Domantas Rumšas also got involved in the silliness, making several truly odd decisions that seemed to favor the “hosts.” Fiorentina, though, hung in there; even without the ability to pass through the puddles, the intensity increased. It finally paid off at the hour mark, when Lucas Beltrán latched onto a knockdown from Nzola and rolled it into the far bottom corner with a vintage toe poke.

With the scores level, Fiorentina was suffused with fresh belief. Ikoné came to life, creating a couple of decent chances with his dribbling, and it felt like the breakthrough was coming. It was, of course, but it came at the wrong end. Luca Ranieri let Adan Khalaifi past him and the teenager smashed home a lovely angled finish, although Pietro Terracciano could’ve maybe done a bit more.

This time, at least, the Viola didn’t let their heads drop and maintained some intensity, pushing forward. Nico took an absolutely brutal forearm to the face from Show for which the Angolan somehow only got a yellow, with Beltrán just missing his second from the ensuing free kick. The goal finally arrived via Mandragora, who drifted into space in teh box to meet a surging Biraghi cutback and slam it home. After barely featuring, he’d truly scored a goal a la Benassi.

The drama wasn’t anywhere near done, though, as Show was sent off for an idiotic kick from behind on Giacomo Bonaventura with 10 minutes left. Neither he nor his manager argued it at all, which should tell you just how egregious it was. Fiorentina threw the kitchen sink forward and kept Maccabi Haifa in its own penalty area, creating a couple of half chances, but there was never any doubt that this situation called for one man to come on and score a weird Conference League goal: yep, it was Antonín Barák who latched onto a Bonaventura pass, turned, and elegantly swiped it home via a deflection off Seck in the final minute of stoppage time. Scenes.

Full time

Goals: Seck 12’, Kinda 29’ (ass. Mohamed), Khalaili 67’ (ass. Pierrot); Nzola 2’ (ass. Kayode), Beltrán 58’ (ass. Nzola), Mandragora 73’ (ass. Biraghi), Barák 90’+5 (ass. Bonaventura)

Cards: Mohamed 10’, Dego 55’ (lol), Show 69’ 80’; Italiano 45’+2 (lol), Kayode 84’, Milenković 87’

Stats

What’s next

It was about as Fiorentina a performance as Fiorentina has ever Fiorentinaed, but in the end it was enough. Questions will need to be asked about the defense, but it’s probably smarter to treat this as a one-off given the state of the turf, which snuffed out any attempt to play the ball. In the end, we can savor the win and the advantage going into the second leg at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, where the grass probably won’t be underwater.

That return leg, by the way, is next week, sandwiched between a game against a red hot AS Roma and a trip to Bergamo for Atalanta. If (and at this point it does feel like an if) the Viola hold onto advance, we’ll learn their quarterfinal opponent on next Friday. For now, though, let’s just get into the weekend unscathed and hope that the Giallorossi used up all their goals for the week in that destruction of Brighton Hove and Albion.