The Fiorentina captain scored from his own half – the opponent saw a fair play violation. Who is right?

The Fiorentina coach praised the captain.

Fiorentina won for the first time in 4 rounds of Serie A, having dismantled Verona with a score of 3:0 away. She put an end to a very debatable goal – Cristiano Biragi perfectly put a free-kick from his own half of the field.

In the 89th minute, the captain of Fiorentina got his bearings in a peculiar way: while the Verona player helped Fiorentina midfielder Rolando Mandragora, who had earned a foul in his half of the field, get to his feet, Biraghi simply took and shot goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipo by the collar. Yes, I did it with the score 2:0.

Everything was so fast that in the TV broadcast the goal was not even shown live, playing a replay of the episode with the Verona violation.

The players of “Verona” attacked the referee demanding to cancel the goal – they pointed out that everyone was distracted by Mandragora lying on the ground. The fans were also unhappy. The referee was not going to show a yellow card and did not ask to keep a distance, and the player who was fouled did not ask for a doctor. There was no reason to cancel.

At this time Biraghi was celebrating a goal. He pointed to the sky – as it turned out, he dedicated the ball to Davide Astori, who died 5 years ago, on March 4, 2018.

After the final whistle, the referee had to defend Biraghi from the Verona players – they wanted to tell the Fiorentina captain everything they thought about his trick.

After the match, statistics appeared. Biraghi hit the goal from a distance of 57.91 meters. This is the furthest goal in Serie A in 10 years. It is curious that then, from 61.5 meters, another Fiorentina defender, Facundo Roncalla, laid.

Despite the dissatisfaction of the opponents, Fiorentina coach Vincenzo Italiano praised Biraghi: “He did everything perfectly. Such situations do not happen very often. He deserves credit for both insight and performance – it’s not easy to hit from such a distance. Christian is our captain, it was a great goal, so we had every right to celebrate it.”