Vincenzo Italiano reveals he ‘owes the players dinner’ after the historic 1-0 win away to Inter and defines the moment when Fiorentina’s season truly turned around.
The Viola are the form team in Italy at the moment, as this was their eighth consecutive victory in all competition, sealed by a Giacomo Bonaventura header from close range.
They are in the Coppa Italia semi-final against Cremonese and will face Lech Poznan of Poland in the Europa Conference League quarter-final, all of which will be played in April.
“We set ourselves the objective of climbing up the table and making up lost ground,” Italiano told DAZN.
“It was a complicated situation we found ourselves in, but we gave a strong response. The game with Verona was the turning point, as that was too important for us and I saw something different in the lads. The real difference was upfront, as both of our strikers got their breakthroughs.”
That was a 3-0 victory away to Hellas Verona on February 27, followed immediately by the 2-1 win over Milan.
Nonetheless, this evening’s victory could easily have had more than one goal, as both Fiorentina and Inter were wasteful.
“It was a very entertaining match against Inter, we created many scoring opportunities and the lads deserve credit. Now I owe the players dinner because it was my first ever victory at San Siro.”
Italiano had never beaten Simone Inzaghi before, while Fiorentina were without a win at San Siro against Inter since 2015, so this result certainly broke a few taboos.
“Now we want to concentrate on the Cup competitions, as they are important for us.”