Fiorentina vs Grasshoppers preview

August 28, 2013
By: Nemanja Lazarevic

Fiorentina vs GrasshoppersFiorentina will be out to finish the job following a 2-1 victory in the first leg, but the hosts cannot afford to relax just yet as Grasshoppers haven’t given up on the place in the Europa League group stages.

After they came into a position to fight for Serie A survival two years back, Viola have been on a major uptrend ever since, achieving a fourth-place finish in the league last season.

Having missed out on a Champions League berth by mere two points, Fiorentina were determined to make things right this season and in turn completed several excellent signings.

Mario Gomez, Josip Ilicic, Marcos Alonso and Massimo Ambrosini all arrived at Artemio Franchi, while the return of Giuseppe Rossi was also a big boost.

As a result, Fiorentina kicked off the new campaign with a 2-1 triumph over Grasshoppers in the Europa League play-offs before defeating Catania in the league by the same result.

Even with Vincenzo Montella set to ring some changes, Viola are expected to extend the winning run, with home win paying 1.53 (8/15) at William Hill.

Having missed a real sitter against Catania, Mario Gomez is 2.20 (6/5) with BetVictor to finally register his first goal in Fiorentina shirt.

Ahmed Hegazy misses out through injury, but Massimo Ambrosini returns from domestic suspension. Wantaway forward Adem Ljajic is unlikely to play.

Probable starting line-up (3-5-2): Neto – Roncaglia, Rodriguez, Tomovic – Joaquin, Fernandez, Ambrosini, Valero, Alonso – Gomez, Ilicic.

The second-place finish in domestic championship saw Grasshoppers return to Europe’s elite competition after a ten-year absence, but their Champions League spell was short-lived.

Despite showing a lot of promise in the first leg of the third qualifying stage clash against Lyon, GC crashed out of the Champions League on the back of two 1-0 defeats.

The Swiss giants were then extremely unfortunate to be pitted against Serie A high-flyers Fiorentina, so nobody was surprised to see them lose the first leg at home.

Grasshoppers have since shown some improvement to beat league leaders Young Boys on the road at the weekend, but only after they had been completely outclassed by their less illustrious opponents.

Nevertheless, the victory will serve as a much needed confidence boost before the trip to Florence, but odds of 10.00 (9/1) offered at Paddy Power on GC to qualify show how difficult a task at hand is.

Toko Nzuzi is likely to miss out after suffering a concussion at the weekend, but there are no other selection worries for boss Michael Skibbe.

Probable starting line-up (4-1-4-1): Burki – M. Lang, Vilotic, Grichting, Pavlovic – Salatic – Hajrovic, Abrashi, Caio, Gashi – Ngamukol.

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