Serie A: Bulwark against Bulwark

Fiorentina vs Torino

The phrase “Defence wins championships” has been etched in the minds of every person in the sports world. So, football fans are up for a treat, as two of the best defences in Serie A will clash when Vincenzo Italiano’s Fiorentina host Ivan Jurić’s Torino at the Stadio Artemio Franch.

Defence is the calling card for both of these tenacious contestants this season, and it will be on full display for their top-flight clash. Will Fiorentina manage to produce winning Serie A 2023 results and push forward towards the upper echelon of the league without their leading goal scorer, Bonaventura, or will they succumb to Torino’s labouring bulwark?

Talking Points

Fiorentina defence could send them to the UCL

They may have been a little tepid in the early parts of the season, but Vincenzo Italiano’s outfit keeps on improving as the 2023–24 campaign progresses. They’re currently a Europa League contender after Matchday 17, and after their match against Torino, they could and should propel to Champions League contention.

Their defence has been their bread and butter in the past few weeks, allowing them to surpass notable clubs like Roma, Napoli, Atalanta, and Lazio in the Serie A standings. Impressively, Italiano’s defence has only allowed one goal for the whole month of December. The last time Viola conceded a goal in the top flight was back on December 11, when they visited Lukaku and the rest of Roma at the Stadio Olimpico Tour.

Since then, Cristiano Biraghi and the rest of his comrades in Fiorentina’s defencive line have been an impenetrable Bulwark in the Italian top flight. All of their last four league wins have been clean sheet wins, with Biraghi and Pietro Terracciano making it difficult for rivals to get an offencive rhythm going while Giacomo Bonaventura is taking care of things on the opposite side of the field.

It looks like Vincenzo Italiano and the rest of his team have found their winning formula and are embracing their new identity with pride and glee. With the way things are shaping up in Tuscany, a Champions League bid doesn’t seem that far off.   

What does the Granata need to get over the hump?

Looking back on what Ivan Jurić and his club have produced thus far in the season, one can safely say that the Granata are having yet another pedestrian campaign. After 17 matches, they are still in the 10th spot in the league, the spot where they finished their last two campaigns in the top flight!

To be fair, they have done a good job against teams in the bottom half of the league table, grabbing the win or tallying a draw to get at least one point from the tie. However, they evidently struggle against higher-ranked teams in the league. Aside from their stunning 3-0 clean sheet win against Atalanta, they’ve conceded almost every contest against elite teams in the top flight.

One can’t simply put the blame on a single aspect of their game, but one clear problem is their struggle to find the back of the net. The Granata have only managed to score 15 goals after 17 contests, the fewest number of goals scored by any team in the top 15 of the standings.

Like Fiorentina, it’s their defence that’s been keeping the team afloat. Jurić’s squad boasts one of the best defences in the entire league, with only Inter Milan, Juventus, and Bologna conceding fewer goals than them thus far.

With all that being said, they still have a lot of football left in the season, and they’re primed to move up a few places in the league standings if they play their cards right. The Granata are currently tied with Lazio with 24 points and are just two points behind Atalanta and three points behind Napoli. A win against Fiorentina won’t just propel them up the standings, but also boost their morale and confidence moving forward.

History

These Italian rivals have faced each other 34 times since 2004. Among them, the Viola have won the majority of their past head-to-head matchups with 16, while Torino have managed to win six. Fiorentina found the back of the net 51 times against Torino in those 34 matches, averaging 1.5 points per game, while Il Toro have scored a respectable 35 goals, giving them a 1.0 point per game average.

In their last six matchups, they’ve evenly split the points between one another, with Fiorentina winning two games and Torino winning two games, and both tallied a draw twice as well.

To deduce it even further, in the last three top-flight matches against Il Toro, Fiorentina have managed to score just one goal, which is probably why SBOTOP has their betting odds prices where they are right now.

Betting Tip 

Torino are just six points behind Fiorentina in the league standings, making this match a competitive top-flight bout, as the Serie A 2023 betting odds suggest. Il Toro are the slight underdogs at 3.17, while the home team, Fiorentina, are the favourites to win at 2.21 and 2.99 to draw.

Given where the Viola are in the standings and how they’ve been playing, a price of 2.21 to win is hands down the best line to consider if punters would want to bet on this match. Fiorentina are on a two-game winning streak and have won three of their last five top-flight competitions. The fact that they’re the fifth seed and rubbing elbows with the best teams in Italy makes them viable winners against any team in the top flight, especially against outfits in the mid and bottom half of the standings.

 

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