Yesterday Fiorentina gave a much-needed Valentine’s Day gift to their fans by defeating Rosenborg 1-0 in the first leg of their Round of 32 UEFA Cup tie. Rosenborg, (as Chris pointed out yesterday) is a pretty good club, so Fiorentina has to be satisfied about getting the win (and the valuable away-goal) on the road. Nothing is close to guaranteed, but at least the Viola are now in the driver’s seat for the return leg. 
I can’t really recap the match here since, well, I didn’t actually see it. I was at my pesky “real” job, so I followed the game on the ESPN “game tracker” thing that has the digital pitch and describes the action. As the British football magazine When Saturday Comes recently pointed out, these match trackers are usually good for little more than listing the throw-ins, which for them seems to be the be-all-end-all of every football match, so it is tough for me to coherently sum up the game. Essentially, however, what I could figure from following those little dots around was this:
1). Mutu came back from injury and scored the only goal in the 16th.
2). Fiorentina’s midfield played well and generally kept possession.
3). Frey made a few nice saves, including a very good one in the 75th.
4). Fiorentina dominated for long, long stretches.
I’ll take it. Frankly, I’d take the win no matter what, but still. This get’s the Viola’s momentum back on track after a disappointing weekend and sets them up (hopefully) to have a nice game on Sunday vs. Catania. Speaking of which, I will try to get the preview of that important match up today or tomorrow and will recap the game (I will actually watch this one) on Sunday night.