Coming off a massive win against Benevento, Fiorentina seemed to be trending in the right direction, and there was some optimism in the Viola camp despite having to face second-place AC Milan, who’d just been knocked out of the Europa League and were starting to feel a bit nervous about their position in the Champions League places for next year.
With both Cesare Prandelli and Stefano Pioli having to work without some key players, it felt like we could get a pretty wild game, and that’s exactly what happened. Referee Marco Guida took center stage for much of the match, declining to review the opening goal despite Zlatan Ibrahimović’s obvious shove on Germán Pezzella and again turning down the chance to check a penalty at the other end as Brahim Díaz tripped up Franck Ribery.
Those were far from the only remarkable incidents in the game, though. Erick Pulgar celebrated his 50th Serie A appearance for the hosts with an incredible free kick and Bartłomiej Drągowski was forced off with a non-contact injury. Oh, and the visitors came back from 2-1 down to win it 3-2 after some defensive mistakes from the good guys.
While this one is probably overshadowed by what happened immediately afterwards—Prandelli’s resignation from his post—you can read all of our usual coverage right here, including the preview, the predictions, the match thread, the highlights, the player grades, and the post mortem analysis.