Como's clinical edge punishes profligate Fiorentina in Florence
Mattia Liberali scored on his first Serie A start and Nico Paz struck twice in a 3-1 win at Fiorentina, who hit the woodwork and saw a goal ruled out after a VAR system failure.
Como left the Artemio Franchi with a 3-1 win that flattered neither side's underlying performance but rewarded one team's finishing far more than the other's, as reported by Football Italia.
Fiorentina had been lifted by the return of coach Paolo Vanoli, only to suffer a 2-1 defeat at Genoa before this latest setback. Luca Ranieri, Arthur Atta and Fabiano Parisi were all unavailable, with Mateo Pellegrino restored alongside Franco Mastantuono up front.
Como arrived under their own strain, having taken just one point from their previous two Serie A rounds and lost their first Champions League match to Feyenoord. Assane Diao joined Moise Kean on the treatment table from that game, with Kean missing out against the club that sold him. Mattia Liberali was handed his first start, while a late fitness issue forced Yan Couto out of the warm-up, with Ivan Smolcic stepping in.
A cushion built from two clear chances
Fiorentina created the better openings early on. Pedro Goncalves, given his first start, released Alieu Njie only for Marc-Oliver Kempf to intervene, and a Niccolò Fagioli follow-up was blocked wide. David De Gea then had to be alert, palming away a Lucas Da Cunha curler and parrying a Tasos Douvikas header from the resulting corner, with Liberali firing the rebound off target.
Como's response was to take the two chances that mattered most. Liberali's opener arrived in controversial circumstances: Kempf appeared to foul Goncalves as the move began, but the passage of play continued and Liberali curled a left-footed finish into the far bottom corner from inside the box. It was his first Serie A goal, coming on his first start, and the first scored by an Italian for Como in the competition since Patrick Cutrone in May 2025, according to Football Italia.
Within minutes, Como doubled the lead. Alex Valle's cross from the left found Nico Paz, whose towering header looped back across De Gea and into the top corner. The pattern of the game had been set: Fiorentina generating openings, Como converting theirs.
The SAOT malfunction that cost Fiorentina a goal
Fiorentina pulled one back before half-time through Marin Pongracic, who reacted fastest after Jacobo Ramon's clearance off the line fell kindly, firing in from seven yards for his first Serie A goal. Moments later Pongracic appeared to make it 2-2, meeting a Mastantuono free kick at the back post with a cushioned volley.
That goal was disallowed following a four-minute VAR review for offside, with Football Italia reporting that the Semi-Automatic Offside Technology was not functioning at the time, forcing officials into a longer manual check. The delay and the eventual decision left Fiorentina with a goal they believed should have stood, turning a potentially level contest back in Como's favour heading into the second half.
Wasted chances compound Fiorentina's frustration
Alieu Njie nearly equalised immediately after the restart, latching onto a Fagioli ball over the top and flicking it past the advancing Jean Butez, only to see it run across an unguarded goal and out for a goal kick. Fiorentina kept pressing, with Cher Ndour shooting straight at Butez and Mastantuono having an effort charged down, but the game's third moment of transition went against them.
Goncalves lost possession in a dangerous area, and Nico Paz exploited it with a slide-rule pass that sent Douvikas clear down the right; his finish squirmed under De Gea to make it 3-1. Paz was involved in all three Como goals, scoring once and setting up two others across the game.
Fiorentina continued to create problems without finding the finish to match. Nico Paz tried an audacious lob from midfield after spotting De Gea off his line, while at the other end Pongracic blocked a close-range effort from Bruno Kaiki and De Gea got a hand to a Maxence Caqueret strike. The clearest chance of the closing stages fell to Njie in the 76th minute, a free header from a couple of yards out after a Marco Brescianini cross, which he put onto the upright. Fagioli twice tested Butez from the edge of the area but could not add a second Fiorentina goal.
The shot count underlines the gap between performance and result: Fiorentina had 19 shots to Como's 16, with seven on target to Como's eight, according to the match statistics reported by Football Italia. Fiorentina also had ten corners to Como's five and marginally more possession at 53 per cent. None of that translated into more than a single goal on the day, while Como made three of their comparatively fewer opportunities count.
The result leaves Fiorentina to address a familiar problem of creating without converting, having already stumbled against Genoa despite Vanoli's return bringing an initial lift. For Como, the win arrests a difficult run that included Champions League defeat to Feyenoord and injuries to both Diao and Kean, with Liberali's breakthrough goal and Nico Paz's double contribution offering evidence that the attacking options beyond the two absentees can still carry the team forward.