Nobody really expected Fiorentina to do much against a Lazio side desperate for 3 points to keep up a late charge for the Champions League, but that’s why they play the games. The Viola produced a brilliant performance to upend the Aquile and make it four straight without a loss, propelling themselves up the table and very nearly ensuring that they can’t be relegated this year.
It wasn’t quite a cakewalk, though. Bartłomiej Drągowski had to produce an absolutely unbelievable save early on (as well as a string of stops on Ciro Immobile, who was constantly flagged offside), but Fiorentina’s suspect defense really stepped up and largely shut down a lethal Laziale attack afterwards. Going forward, it was, of course Dušan Vlahović who opened the scoring with a striker’s tap-in right before halftime.
It was Vlahović who closed down the scoring as well, rising fantastically to power home a header from a corner in the waning moments of the game to send the visitors packing. You can’t say they didn’t deserve it, either, both for their inability to muster anything going forward and for their absolutely brutal assault on Franck Ribery and Gaetano Castrovilli in the second half; the pair took a vicious kicking and referee Fabio Maresca could have easily issued more than the 9 yellow cards and 1 red that Lazio received.
However, the game ended with Fiorentina whooping up a well-earned win at the Artemio Franchi. We’ve got all our coverage of this one here, from the preview to the match thread to the highlights to the player grades to the analysis. Enjoy.