Fiorentina and ACAi??Milan indulged in a slugfest of a match with the referee, Tagliavento grabbing the headlines.
This was a match, the result of which benefited neither team. The gap between these two still remains 6 points. It was a match of two halves as Milan dominated the first and after their second goal, seemed to take their foot off the pedal instead of going for the kill. Also noteworthy was the performance of the referee, who awarded two penalties to Fiorentina, both being pretty soft penalties to say the least. On top of it, at the dying moments of the match, the referee decided against giving a penalty to Milan, when a corner took a deflection from Pazziniai??i??s head and hit a Fiorentina defender on his hand; all the while, the referee was standing hardly 10 feet away from the offender.
Milan might feel being hard done at this, but as they say, the game is a great leveler. Fiorentina were down to 10 men as early as the 39th minute. Heated exchanges were in order as players clashed, collided, punched and kicked around. Mexes even came back to his old elements as he punched Cuadrado in the back. Even though Jovetic recovered miraculously to start for the home team, his overall impact on the match was not significant. However, it was Ljajic and Cuadrado who tormented the Milan backline all afternoon. De Sciglio did not have a good game at all with Cuadrado dragging him all over the pitch, and he was the reason for Fiorentinaai??i??s second penalty. At one time, De Sciglio was so far up the pitch, that Abate had to move from the right flank to the left one to cover for him.
Montolivo, wearing the captainai??i??s armband, scored his second goal in as many matches, as he staked his claim for a permanent role as captain of the team. With Abbiati left with hardly a season and Ambrosini to decide on his future after this season is over, it might be a good time for both Allegri and Galliani to hand over the armband to Montolivo on a permanent basis. After all, during the clash against Juventus earlier in the season, the same was done by Berlusconi and he excelled in that match too.
The atmosphere at Artemio Franchi was tense from the very onset of the match as both these teams have harbored European ambitions for the next season. Neither team wanted to give even an inch to the other one as the home crowd hurled abuses at Milan. Even Galliani, who was watching from the stands, was not safe from this. So much so, Galliani had to watch the second half of the match in the locker room. After the match, Fiorentina officials formally apologized to Galliani, blaming him for inciting the crowd trouble.
Back on the field, Fiorentina were hell-bent on stopping El Shaarawy and employed every tactic in the book to stop him. In the first half itself, he was elbowed in the face by Tomovic, who received his marching orders. In the second half of the match, he was the fortunate recipient of a direct kick on his shin. However, he was not the most fouled Milan player as that honor went to Balotelli, who suffered 8 fouls. The most hostile reception was reserved for the Milan captain for the day ai??i?? Montolivo. Facing his old club, the home crowd jeered and booed his every touch and needless to say, his opening goal did not go down well with the fans.
Montolivo pulled all the strings in the midfield, ably assisted by Flamini, Muntari and Nocerino. Although Milan started off with a 4-3-3 formation with Boateng playing as the right forward, they switched formation throughout the match. The most notable one came in the last 10 minutes of the match as they deployed 4 forwards ai??i?? El Shaarawy, Balotelli, Niang and then Pazzini. The formation resembled a 4-2-4 as Milan went in for the kill. But even with four strikers, they found it difficult to score the winning goal and as a result, the draw left Milan unbeaten in 2013 and also helped to maintain Fiorentinaai??i??s home record.
Allegri was not bullish in his post-match reaction as he claimed that Tagliavento had a tough game officiating the match. Although Milan did let go of a two-goal lead, the worst outcome of the match was the yellow card for Balotelli in the second half. This means he will be missing the next match against Napoli, which is perhaps the most important one of the remaining list of the fixtures for the season for Milan.
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