After a convincing 3-0 win at home to Udinese on Sunday afternoon, Fiorentina will now face one of their toughest opponents yet as they travel to Turin to face Juventus and Connall Shaw weighs up their chances against the reigning champions.
Fiorentina have finally awoken from their slumber and they’re now going to have to face the terrifying force that is La Vecchia Signora, as they head up north to the Juventus Stadium to quite literally enter the mouth of the beast.
Sure, going up against an old lady doesn’t sound particularly too scary, especially against one that suffered such an embarrassing start to the season, but this old woman should definitely not be underestimated.
Following a string of losses and frustrating draws, the Bianconeri have finally steadied themselves and are unbeaten in their past seven games throughout all competitions, several key players like Paul Pogba and Mario Mandzukic have begun to rediscover their form whilst Argentinian starlet Paulo Dybala just doesn’t seem to know the word stop.
They will be full of confidence and eager to impress their home crowd once more, so just how can Fiorentina come out of this battle alive?
Well, they should take faith from now knowing that they have a plan B at hand, should they ever need it. It seemed at first that teams had figured out Paulo Sousa’s master plan of rotation and crossing the ball in from the wings, as suspected after three straight draws in the space of week, however, an astounding win against the Zebrette proved otherwise.
The team opted to send long balls over the top towards main man Nikola Kalinic before mixing play up with runs down the side of Udinese’s defence. The tactic worked like magic, as Kalinic once again benefited from the work of his teammates and took the game by storm.
The idea to play the ball directly over the top from the defence additionally cut out Udinese’s high pressing style of play and if the team are able to perfect this once more on Sunday evening, then they just might catch Juve on the back foot.
Youngster Federico Bernardeschi has also upped his game in recent weeks, having been gifted a starting role since Jakub Blaszczykowski’s injury. His inclusion into the starting line up has sparked new life into this Fiorentina side and it now has a little bit of everything; energy, flair, instinct and more than enough grit.
He’s also one of the main reasons as to why the team have been able to find this ‘Plan B’, as he is the one who is willing to take on his man and drive behind the defence before cutting in a ball.
However, there are times in which warning signs do begin to go off. No side is perfect and Fiorentina certainly aren’t an exception that rule. Just look at the defence, whilst Gonzalo Rodriguez and Davide Astori are putting in a fine shift, it’s the wing-backs which are the weakest point in the squad.
For this reason, Sousa has changed between using three at the back with one of Nenad Tomovic and Facundo Roncaglia as the extra defender, and pushing one of the two to the right in their natural positions – neither of which brings any securities.
Juventus are obviously going to try and target this and will likely the push the Viola defence to it’s absolute limit. It’s going to take an enormous effort from the men at the back to keep their cool and stay un-rattled, fingers crossed Tomovic has another excellent performance in him for the coming weekend.
Hopefully we’ll be seeing the Fiorentina that decided to show up last week (without the minor heart-attack defensive moments) and not the ugly one which reared it’s head straight after the international break, because this is definitely a match that Fiorentina stand within a chance of winning if every member of the squad is on his game.
It’s also worth mentioning that Fiorentina will play at home to Portuguese side Belenenses on Thursday in a game which they must take at least one point from to secure qualification in their Europa League group.
It would be wise for Sousa to rest his main team for this game and take a slight gamble with some of the fringe players so that there will be no worries heading into Sunday.
