Fiorentina returns to winning the championship thanks to a not too serious challenge.
This was easily understood from Italiano’s invitations who, after the efforts of the Conference and on the eve of the return of the Italian Cup against Atalanta, the visit of the Viola to the home of the disastrous Salernitana it would have been the last thought for everyone. In an Arechi team which records one of the worst seasonal numbers for spectators, the only ones who held out a bit in Salernitana-Fiorentina – for ancient reasons of rivalry – seem to have been the organized Granata groups, protagonists of some scuffles in the pre-match in search of contact with the purple ultras patrol that descended on Campania.
Almost all the owners of the advanced department left at home, Italian throws out an almost surrealist eleven, with an unlikely Barak at the top of the attack and Castrovilli from the first minute for his first appearance of the season. The playmaker from Canosa di Puglia returns to the Serie A pitch 324 days after his last appearance, Sassuolo-Fiorentina 1-3 on the last day of the last championship: it must have been the desire to play despite being practically an outsider squad, it must have been the modest technical level of the opponents, the fact is that the dancer from the Murge in the 70 minutes played he was among the most positive in Fiorentina. But, even if it is unfairly harsh to find a correlation, it will be his replacement Kouamé who breaks the deadlock in the 80th minute in favor of the Viola.
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Yes, because Salernitana despite everything holds the 0-0 for almost the entire match, even going so far at times as to maintain an aggressive attitude in defending, risking some hints of high pressure and some attempts at restarts. A lot of it comes from the Viola, too lacking in consolidated references on the pitch and above all particularly nervous, even frustrated at not being able to carry out the most basic movements with and without the ball. Tangible feelings – in addition to the usual shouts of Italian – from the gestures and some moments of henhouse tension with the opponents, rather than from the increase in fouls on the pitch: the pace is often so low that it doesn’t even allow game clashes.
It is well known that Fiorentina has problems going forward, both in terms of quality and organization (and confidence). Especially away. The complications of the starting eleven of Salernitana-Fiorentina, where Barak’s uncertainties in interpreting the role of offensive top stand out, contributed to aggravating them to the point of making a modest team like the Campania team survive, which at times even seemed to find itself in his ease in defending with that compact low block caused many headaches for the lilies during the year. Ochoa will take care of the rest, within human limits. If, after stopping Kouamé who was thrown towards goal, a few minutes later the Mexican surrendered to the tackle of the same Ivorian tragically marked by Pellegrino, in Ikoné’s second goal (second goal in a row in the championship) with time up Memo he was the only one to really try to avoid the goal, in an action that more than anything else well embodied the level of resignation that hovers over Colantuono’s team.
In the end, despite a context and performances that were little reminiscent of Serie A, Fiorentina returned to winning in the championship too. Away, it is the first time in 2024: in this calendar year the Viola had only beaten Maccabi Haifa away from home. Strange as it may be, and above all as it is now a secondary objective, the calendar they have ahead of them could lead us to believe that there is still something to be said in terms of European qualifications. Of course, in January the ambitions seemed different, and physiologically the attention can only be directed towards the national and continental semi-finals which it has already reached. And it is certainly not Salernitana-Fiorentina that leaves reliable indications on the technical and psychological state of the Italian team. Granada side, the calculations have been made for some time, in a season that started so badly that it could only have continued with such a drip. To date, only the recovery of Udinese-Roma postpones the mathematical relegation of the Campanians to Serie B. For Colantuono’s team, this is most likely the last week of the top flight.