Bayern Munich-Fiorentina: Refereeing Decisions Cost Fiorentina

Bay­ern Munich will take a slen­der lead to Flo­rence after a con­tro­ver­sial 2–1 win over Fiorentina in a hotly con­tested match which fea­tured a num­ber of odd deci­sions by the ref­er­ee­ing crew. Fiorentina’s Coach Cesare Pran­delli was aggra­vated while club skip­per Ric­cardo Mon­to­livo could not believe his eyes and admit­ted the play­ers are disheartened.

There is no point dwelling on what hap­pened but the main ques­tion will be whether the Gigliati will put this defeat behind and use it as the fuel nec­es­sary to pro­pel them to the next round or if they will hide behind these wrong deci­sions as an excuse for fold­ing and exit­ing the com­pe­ti­tion. Prandelli’s play­ers have been going through a dis­mal run with the play­ers unable to achieve vic­tory in recent matches with the attack­ers strug­gling to score and the defense leak­ing goals. Against the Bavar­i­ans  the Gigliati play­ers appeared to be moti­vated and could have eas­ily escaped with a draw despite Bayern’s dom­i­na­tion in terms of possession.

Fiorentina’s play­ers appeared com­fort­able defend­ing the 1–1 tie and only the deci­sion to expel Mas­simo Gobbi and the  two other unfor­tu­nate inci­dents involv­ing Miroslav Klose altered the final score. The Ital­ian club’s play­ers will take heart from this but some­times moral vic­to­ries are not enough to over­turn a Euro­pean tie. Bayern’s play­ers are not to blame in any form for the wrong­ful deci­sions by the ref­eree and his assis­tants. Dutch­man Arjen Robben con­tin­ues to strike fear in oppo­nents and he was the main cat­a­lyst (besides the woe­ful ref­eree) behind the vic­tory of the Ger­man side. French star Franck Ribery will be in bet­ter con­di­tion once the tie heads to Italy so Coach Pran­delli will have his hands full try­ing to limit the threat ema­nat­ing from those two players.

Fiorentina will be with­out the injured Alessan­dro Gam­berini in defense but they must play with pas­sion and com­mit­ment in order to pre­vent Bay­ern from scor­ing and then a nar­row win could suf­fice. The Gigliati must be care­ful because the Bavar­i­ans com­pletely out­played, out­hus­tled and outscored Juven­tus in Turin when the two teams met in the group’s penul­ti­mate match to decide the fate of the qual­i­fy­ing team. Bay­ern are quite capa­ble of win­ning away from home and have many weapons which can bother Fiorentina’s shaky defense.

Will Pran­delli be able to rally the troops to con­tinue the fairy­tale run or will the Ger­man giants advance to con­tinue their quest to reach the final? The neu­tral obser­vant might be lean­ing towards Fiorentina not because they have any­thing against Bay­ern but due to the obvi­ous calls which went against the Ital­ian club. The Ger­mans have two of the most excit­ing stars to watch in Ribery and Robben but the man­ner of the vic­tory achieved must have left a bit­ter taste even for the Bavar­ian club.

Tagged as: bayern munich, fiorentina, Montolivo, Prandelli, Ribery, Robben