Frosinone stuns Fiorentina 3-0 at the Franchi despite home dominance

Franco Mastantuono hammered a shot off the post, Mateo Pellegrino missed with only the keeper to beat, Valde struck another post, and none of it mattered. Frosinone left the Artemio Franchi with a resounding 0-3 win that leaves Fiorentina feeling like they got almost everything wrong at exactly the wrong moments. Antonio Raimondo scored twice and Gabriele Bracaglia added the third in a Serie A match that was effectively decided in just 42 minutes of play.

The script was written early. In the 25th minute, Antonio Raimondo tapped in from close range off a pass from Giorgi Kvernadze to open the scoring. Twelve minutes later, in the 37th, Gabriele Bracaglia headed home a corner delivered by Giacomo Calò to make it 2-0. Fiorentina, who up to that point had been the team pressing forward more, went into halftime down 0-2 despite creating several clear chances: the post denied both Mastantuono and Valde within minutes of each other, and Pellegrino wasted at least two opportunities inside the box.

In the second half, the home side kept pushing, with Arthur Atta and Cher Ndour testing the goal from outside the area, but Frosinone managed the spaces well and waited for its moment. It came in the 67th minute: Bracaglia this time turned provider, sending Raimondo through with a pass into space, and the forward finished with his left foot into the top corner to complete his brace and make it 0-3. From there, the match dissolved into substitutions and fouls, and Fiorentina could not pull one back despite continuing to press until the final whistle with the introductions of Nicolò Fagioli, Rolando Mandragora and João Mário.

Numbers that don't add up

What stands out is that possession and control of the ball were overwhelmingly in the home side's favor, yet none of it translated into goals. Fiorentina finished with nearly double the shots of their opponent, but were far less accurate in hitting the target.

Our expected goals estimate based on the match's shots comes out almost even: 1.929 for Fiorentina against 1.801 for Frosinone. That's a telling read: the home side generated enough danger to have taken something from the match, but Frosinone was far more clinical with the little it had, converting six shots on target into three goals.

The result also runs completely counter to what we projected before kickoff. In our preview we gave Fiorentina a 57% chance of winning, against just 19% for Frosinone, with a draw at 24%. We also projected an expected goals split of 1.96 for the home side versus 1.05 for the visitors. None of that held up: the team given fewer chances on paper walked away with all three points, and did so convincingly.

What the standings show

In the table, the match reads very differently for each side. Frosinone moves to 3 points in the competition, with one win and one loss in two matches, sitting in 11th place. Fiorentina, on the other hand, has lost both of its games and remains on zero points, in 20th place, with a goal difference that is already the worst in the league. The 3-point gap between the two sides in the standings doesn't fully capture what played out on the field today, where the dominance belonged mostly to a team that nonetheless walked away empty-handed.

For Fiorentina, the match raises more questions than it answers: they created chances, they shot plenty, they hit the woodwork, but they could not turn any of it into a goal, while at the other end Frosinone made the most of every chance it got near the box.