Fiorentina notched up a fifth consecutive victory in all competition thanks to well-worked Rolando Mandragora and Arthur Cabral goals away to Cremonese.
This was an early preview of the upcoming Coppa Italia semi-final. The hosts earned their first win of the season by beating Roma 2-1 a fortnight ago, while the Viola were fresh off back-to-back Serie A victories and a Conference League Round of 16 with Sivasspor, prompting squad rotation. Aleksa Terzic, Vlad Chiriches and Emanuel Aiwu were out of action, while Pietro Terracciano had flu, so Salvatore Sirigu made his Serie A debut for the Tuscans.
In the opening 90 seconds, Cyriel Dessers nodded over from a long throw-in that took the visitors by surprise, while Ferrari threw himself in the way of Antonin Barak’s finish from 10 yards and Rolando Mandragora’s powerful long-range drive flashed just wide.
Fiorentina broke the deadlock after an inspired Barak cross-field pass, as Jonathan Ikone ran into traffic, but Mandragora drilled in on the rebound from 12 yards.
Barak managed to pull back from the by-line after good work from Ikone for an Arthur Cabral diving header deflected wide from point-blank range.
The visitors doubled their lead with a goal of real quality sparked by substitute Josip Brekalo, as Mandragora rolled across for Cabral to tap in relatively undisturbed in a quick passing move.
An acrobatic Buonaiuto overhead kick didn’t pay off, while Daniel Ciofani nodded an Emanuele Valeri cross just over, then Sirigu had to sprint off his line and stand his ground one-on-one against David Okereke.
Cremonese pushed to the bitter end with Buonaiuto and Ciofani efforts charged down in the box.
Cremonese 0-2 Fiorentina
Mandragora 27 (F), Cabral 50 (F)
Player statistic
27' | Rolando Mandragora (Assist: Jonathan Ikoné) |
50' | Arthur Cabral (Assist: Rolando Mandragora) | |||
Alex Ferrari | 51' | |||
55' | Rolando Mandragora | |||
60' | Josip Brekalo |