Mastantuono Tears Through Venice: Fiorentina Register Vanoli's First Win as Venezia's Collapse Continues

Mastantuono Tears Through Venice: Fiorentina Register Vanoli's First Win as Venezia's Collapse Continues

By: Dr. Talal Othman, General Manager — GCC Sport

In a city that has known how to sink slowly for centuries, Venezia sank in record time on Friday night against Argentine wonderkid Franco Mastantuono, who turned Matchday 4 of Serie A into a personal showcase, firing Fiorentina to a commanding 4-2 win — Paolo Vanoli's first as head coach of "La Viola"  and pushing Venezia into a reality too stark to soften: four matches, zero points, and a bottom-of-the-table position that resembles nothing but itself.

Ten Minutes Were Enough to Change a Match's Fate

Things began against the visitors' script. Akor Adams struck in the 22nd minute, finishing off a swift counterattack to hand Venezia a lead that, in the moment, looked enough to deliver the club's first points of the season  and perhaps the first sign of relief for coach Giuseppe Stroppa in a rescue mission that already feels heavier than words can carry.

What followed, though, was closer to an unstoppable individual explosion. Mastantuono  the 19-year-old Argentine winger on loan from Real Madrid  equalized almost immediately, then struck twice more in quick succession between the 29th and 39th minutes, a sequence of goals too emphatic to be dismissed as coincidence. It read instead as a statement from a young player imposing himself on Italian football from his very first steps in it: a complete hat-trick inside ten minutes.

Fiorentina then settled into the calm of a team that had already established tactical superiority. Pellegrino, introduced alongside Gnonto in Vanoli's attacking substitutions, added a fourth in the 67th minute from yet another counterattack, effectively ending any realistic hope of a Venezia comeback. Hainaut did pull one back late for the hosts, but it changed nothing about the result  more a gesture to the home crowd than a genuine response.

Tactical Read: Fiorentina Find Their Speed, Venezia Find Their Recurring Crisis

It is hard to ignore the message this result carried on the level of performance, not just the scoreline. Fiorentina, lining up in a 4-2-3-1 with De Gea in goal behind a back four of Jiménez, Dragusin, Ranieri and Viery, and with Ndour and Fagioli anchoring midfield behind Mastantuono, Atta and Njie in support of lone striker Beto, looked like a side that has finally found the formula missing at the start of the season: rapid transitions from defense to attack, and individual confidence in young players sharp enough to decide matches on their own once space opens up.

Venezia, by contrast  fielding a 3-5-2 with Stankovic in goal, Schingtienne, Moreno and Haps at the back, Kike Pérez, Busio and Sohm in midfield, Hainaut and Sagrado on the flanks, and Yeboah and Adams up front  looked trapped in the same pattern that has defined all four of their matches this season: an early lead or a decent spell, followed by a collective defensive collapse the moment real pressure is applied. A team with flashes of individual quality, but one losing its collective structure fast enough to signal a long, difficult season unless the problem is addressed at its root rather than match by match.

The Table Tells Two Opposite Stories

In the Serie A standings, Fiorentina climbed with real confidence after their first win of the season under Vanoli — tangible proof for the Italian coach that his footballing project is beginning to take shape, particularly in his reliance on young energy drawn from within the squad and from the summer transfer market.

Venezia, meanwhile, sit in a position that admits no real excuse: zero points from four matches, bottom of the table, and a combined attacking-defensive crisis that demands a frank assessment from Stroppa before the start of the season hardens into a fixed pattern that becomes hard to break in the months ahead. The coach's post-match comments carried the tone of a man acknowledging a painful defeat, pointing to the second-half response as proof of character within the squad — but character alone does not earn points in a league the size of Serie A.

Conclusion

The Venezia–Fiorentina match was not merely a passing result in the fourth round of a long season. It was a condensed portrait of two opposing trajectories: a club building its attacking identity around a young generation led by a gifted Argentine who has only just begun writing his name into Italian football, and another club still searching for its defensive identity after four straight rounds made clear that a return to Serie A demands far more than ambition and will. In just ten minutes, Mastantuono summed up the gap between the two sides — and perhaps between two very different fates by season's end.

Goal Summary: Venezia 2-4 Fiorentina (Matchday 4, Serie A — September 11, 2026)

• Adams (Venezia) 22'

• Mastantuono (Fiorentina) 29', 31', 39' (hat-trick)

• Pellegrino (Fiorentina) 67'

• Hainaut (Venezia) 86'

Starting Lineups: Venezia (3-5-2): Stankovic; Schingtienne, Moreno, Haps; Kike Pérez, Busio, Sohm, Hainaut, Sagrado; Yeboah, Adams Fiorentina (4-2-3-1): De Gea; Jiménez, Dragusin, Ranieri, Viery; Ndour, Fagioli; Mastantuono, Atta, Njie; Beto