Fiorentina travel to Dinamo Minsk for their second Europa League Group K game at the Borisov Arena in Barysaw on Thursday evening.
Dinamo beat MYPA of Finland, Romania’s CFR Cluj and Nacional of Portugal to progress to the group stage of the Europa League for the first time and will look to become the first Belarusian club to record a victory against Serie A opposition in ten previous attempts.
Their only previous meeting with an Italian side was a 4-1 loss on aggregate to Lazio in the first round of the 1994/95 UEFA Cup, while this will be the Fiorentina’s first encounter with Belarusian opposition in European competition.
The Belo-Golubye kept five clean sheets in qualifying but matched their worst ever result in European competition, a 5-0 defeat to Werder Bremen in the UEFA Cup in October 1995, with a 6-1 loss at PAOK on their group stage debut.
A national symbol during Soviet times and a once dominant force in Belarusian football, Dinamo now lag behind BATE in the Vysheyshaya Liga and are playing their European matches at their rival’s newly opened Borisov Arena over seventy kilometres northeast of Minsk.
However, Fiorentina coach Vincenzo Montella is not underestimating his opponents.
“Considering what I have seen so far, Dinamo Minsk look like a very attacking team,” the 40-year-old tactician said during his pre-match press conference.
“I don’t think we’ll take this match lightly, although we were surprised that Dinamo lost 6-1 to PAOK in the first round.”
The Florentines are unbeaten in ten of their last eleven Europa League matches and eased to a 3-0 win against Guingamp in their opening game with Juan Vargas, Juan Cuadrado and Federico Bernardeschi all on target at the Stadio Artemio Franchi.
Montella is expected to make a number of changes ahead of the visit of Inter in Serie A on Sunday evening and the Viola are also suffering from an injury crisis with first-choice central defenders Stefan Savic and Gonzalo Rodriguez joining Cuadrado, Marko Marin, Mario Gomez and Giuseppe Rossi among the absentees.
Ciprian Tatarusanu is set to return in goal having started against Guingamp and Bernardeschi could make his first start in an experimental Fiorentina side.
Dinamo will be without suspended Serbian midfielder Slobodan Simovic after he was sent-off against PAOK.
Expected Starting XIs
Dinamo Minsk – Ignatovich; Molosh, Bangura, Veretilo, Kontsevoi; Voronkov, Figueredo, Nikolic; Stasevic, Adamovic, Diomande.
Fiorentina – Tatarusanu; Richards, Tomovic, Basanta, Alonso; Kurtic, Badelj, Aquilani; Bernardeschi, Ilicic, Vargas.
