Coming off the back of a flat loss at Lazio, Fiorentina needed a bounce back game in a bad way. While Spezia, sitting just outside the drop zone, looked like the perfect solution, there were still plenty of reasons for concern, first among them the somewhat rancorous feeling among the Ligurians about former manager’s Vincenzo Italiano’s move to Florence over the summer.
Still, the good guys came out as they usually do, moving the ball around without creating too many chances as they probed the visiting defense for weaknesses. It took them awhile to realize that Spezia weren’t going to offer any threat at all, at which point it all became very one-sided. Dušan Vlahović made that dominance count just before the half with a penalty that, while unfortunate for the visitors, confirmed exactly the performances.
After the break, the traffic remained unidirectional. A lovely passing move between Riccardo Saponara and Álvaro Odriozola set up Vlahović for his second, and José Callejón fed him on the break to complete the hat trick as the Aquilotti failed to mount any semblance of a comeback despite throwing on half a dozen attacking players, and Fiorentina killed the game off without any difficulty.
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