Serie A

Football Italia

·15 April 2024

Serie A | Fiorentina 1-1 Genoa: Ikone rescues Viola

Fiorentina stalled again in a 1-1 draw with Genoa, as Jonathan Ikone cancelled out the Albert Gudmundsson penalty and both sides had more spot-kick appeals.

The Viola had only three Serie A wins in 2024 and were fresh off a 0-0 Conference League quarter-final draw with Viktoria Plzen. Nico Gonzalez was rested with M’Bala Nzola injured, while the Grifone missed Ruslan Malinovskyi, Vitinha and Alan Matturro, with Mateo Retegui only fit for the bench.

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Andrea Belotti’s header looped over and Luca Ranieri had to make a risky last-ditch sliding tackle on Junior Messias when sent through by Albert Gudmundsson.

Lucas Beltran went on the counter-attack and saw the right-foot curler graze the far top corner, but Caleb Ekuban had two massive opportunities in 30 seconds. The first saw him meet the Aaron Martin cross to force a fingertip save from Pietro Terracciano, then on the resulting corner somehow turned a free header wide from seven yards.

Fiorentina had the ball in the net on 26 minutes when Belotti ran on to a Beltran through ball to score with a snooker shot from a tricky angle. However, Gallo had wandered offside and there were also protests over a Jack Bonaventura challenge on Mattia Bani in the build-up.

Genoa received a penalty when they lost the ball in the final third and Junior Messias pounced to test Terracciano, but Fabiano Parisi brought down Ekuban on the rebound. Gudmundsson, who had been a transfer target for Fiorentina in January, sent Terracciano the wrong way to convert. Moments later, Messias limped off with a muscular issue.

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) April 15, 2024

The Viola managed to equalise after the restart, as Bonaventura floated a perfect cross onto the head of Jonathan Ikone at the back post, who had peeled away from Aaron Martin.

— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) April 15, 2024

Rolando Mandragora’s free kick grazed the crossbar and Genoa were awarded another penalty on 70 minutes, but that was revoked following a VAR On-Field Review as it was Retegui who started the mutual shirt-tugging with Michael Kayode.

Fiorentina pushed with Ikone’s back-heel flick and a Lucas Martinez-Quarta header off target. They too had penalty appeals for a potential Ridgeciano Haps handling offence, but the referee and VAR waved play on.