Fiorentina 1-1 Maccabi Haifa: Match report and highlights

Pre-match

Vincenzo Italiano (who was suspended and watched from the stands, leaving Daniele Nicolini to run things on the touchlines) opted for a very attacking team, featuring a midfield of Rolando Mandragora, Giacomo Bonaventura, and Antonín Barák. Davide Faraoni and Lucas Martínez Quarta stepped in at the back. Messay Dego went the exact opposite direction, with more than half his lineup comprising of defenders: Feingold, Seck, Šimić, Sundgren, Goldberg, and Cornud.

The real story was probably how empty the Stadio Artemio Franchi was. Fiorentina closed the seats closest to the pitch and limited ticket sales in an effort to prevent any ugly scenes, especially after an announcement from the ultras about the situation in Gaza, but everyone behaved themselves just fine. A lot of the Curva Fiesole refused to enter at the start in protest of a refusal to seat fans who didn’t arrive early, so the atmosphere was pretty dreary.

First half

Maybe that dreary atmosphere was why the game was so bad. Neither team had any motivation to start out hot. Fiorentina, after all, held the lead from the first leg and didn’t want to commit numbers forward and get caught on the break, while Maccabi Haifa clearly wanted to keep it tight through the opening period, defending deep and making sure they kept the deficit at a single goal. Riccardo Sottil provided a couple of nice moments and Cristiano Biraghi found Antonín Barák for a decent chance, while Lorenco Šimić got the ball in the Viola net on the other end but had it ruled out for a glaringly obvious offside. It was bad.

Second half

The second period started much as the first had ended, with Fiorentina in control and carving out the odd half chance but not doing much of anything until the hour mark, when Faraoni got forward and crossed for (who else?) Barák, who glanced his header past Shareef Kaiuf for his 3rd Conference League goal in the campaign. Man just owns this competition. And thanks, Zyntaro, for being the best.

The visitors immediately made attacking changes but didn’t really do much; indeed, they didn’t record their first shot of the game until 67 minutes had gone. The Viola, in contrast, kept plugging away, generating a handful of decent looks, particularly one that Sottil blasted over from close range that he really, really ought to have scored. It looked like Fiorentina would put it to bed regardless, with the return of Dodô (less than 6 months after doing his ACL, which is insane) set to be the highlight, but a lucky break let Shon Goldberg square one for Anan Khalaili, who got his second goal in the series, although Pietro Terracciano deserves the assist for letting the tame effort squirm through him.

That goal set up an unnecessarily tense finish, with Andrea Belotti guilty of wasting a couple of chances to get the ball into a better position (or just into the corner) and allowing Maccabi Haifa to race the other way, although the defense ultimately did its job this time and held out, scraping by a draw and a 5-4 win on aggregate.

Full time

Goals: Barák 59’ (ass. Faraoni); Khalaili 88’ (ass. Goldberg)

Cards: Belotti 90’+6; Cornud 16’, Šimić 79’

Stats

What’s next

Fiorentina, being Fiorentina, made this way more difficult than it ought to have been, outshooting Maccabi Haifa 40-10 across the 2 legs but only winning by a single goal. What’s important, though, is that our boys went through. The draw is tomorrow, so we’ll find out who the Viola play in the quarterfinal then, but we won’t really worry about it for another month; the first leg will be 11 April and the second a week after that.

More immediately, Fiorentina’s reward is a trip to Bergamo to take on Atalanta (up against Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League at time of writing) on Sunday, then get the international break to take a couple of breaths and hopefully get everyone healthy and rested before launching into a truly punishing stretch of the schedule: vs AC Milan, at Atalanta in the Coppa Italia, at Juventus, and then the Conference League quarterfinal. The tempo isn’t letting up, but hopefully Fiorentina can maintain its momentum (6 straight without a loss) and achieve something this year.