Separated only by goal difference in the Serie A’s mid-table, the tentative start between Torino and Fiorentina came as little surprise, leaving both Vanja Milinkovic-Savic and Michele Cerofolini untroubled at either end in an uneventful opening spell.
Having conceded within the first 10 minutes in three of their last five winless games at home, too, Torino’s focus was perhaps on avoiding yet another nightmare start in front of their fans, rather than making a blistering start. The best chance of the half still fell the way of the hosts, however, when Yann Karamoh found himself one-on-one with Cerofolini, only for the goalkeeper to dive down low to his right-hand side to expertly palm away.
Fiorentina manager Vincenzo Italiano saw enough from his side’s toothless first-half performance to warrant an attacking change. And it was a change that turned out to be a masterstroke from the manager, as substitute Luka Jovic nodded home from Christian Kouame’s floated cross just three minutes after his introduction to give La Viola the lead. The opener signalled the start of a dominant period for the visitors, who spurned a golden opportunity to double their lead, when strike agonisingly wide on the end of a well-worked cutback.
It was a miss that Fiorentina were made to pay for in devastating fashion. When Torino found an equaliser out of nowhere as Antonio Sanabria darted towards the front post ahead of his man, before converting Alessandro Buongiorno’s cross into the bottom right-hand corner in clinical fashion for his 12th league goal of the season. Falling back into the tempo that we saw at the start of the first period, both sides settled for a point, leaving them frustratingly level on points in 10th and 11th place respectively.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Christian Kouame (Fiorentina)
