Vincenzo Italiano hopes Fiorentina will not regret wasting chances in the 2-1 Conference League play-off victory over FC Twente. ‘We need greater focus in the second leg.’
The decider will be in Enschede on Thursday August 25 at 18.00 UK time (17.00 GMT).
The away goals rule does not count, so if they finish level on aggregate, it will go to extra time and perhaps even penalties.
Nico Gonzalez had opened the scoring within 61 seconds at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, with Arthur Cabral adding a second, both on Cristiano Biraghi crosses from the left.
It was a perfect first half performance, but only their second competitive match of the season, so the Viola began to run out of steam after the break and conceded when Vaclav Cerny sprung the offside trap.
“It was a fantastic approach, I thought we could’ve scored more than two goals in the first half,” Italiano told Sky Sport Italia.
“Twente are in much better shape physically, because this was only our second match and it showed after the break. We wanted an important result to keep our hopes of qualification alive going into the second leg and we did that, although unfortunately we conceded with their only real attempt on goal.”
It was not dissimilar to the 3-2 win over Cremonese on Sunday, which also showed some weakness in defence.
“We do tend to concede too many goals and that will remind us that we need to have greater focus in the second leg.
“The good news is that we changed six of the starting XI and still managed to be ourselves.”
Sofyan Amrabat was particularly impressive in midfield and looked like the player Fiorentina thought they had signed from Hellas Verona.
“He arrived two years ago with great expectations and didn’t live up to those, so was losing his confidence,” explained the coach.
“Now he has convinced himself that he can play that role in front of the defence and is growing from game to game. We’re very happy, it’s a whole other Amrabat, but he can do even better.”