Wladimiro Falcone, Lecce's goalkeeper and one of the few fixed points in a season of structural collapse, faces a defining week: a Monday night home fixture against Fiorentina — themselves in relegation trouble and now without Moise Kean — that could determine whether Di Francesco's side has any realistic path out of 18th place.
Lecce sit bottom-three with 27 points from 32 matches, a record of seven wins, six draws and nineteen defeats, and a goal difference that tells the real story: 21 scored, 45 conceded. For a goalkeeper, that last number is the professional context Falcone operates in every week. His season average rating of 6.90 across those 32 matches is not the mark of a man drowning — it suggests he has frequently outperformed the defensive structure around him.
The most recent evidence arrived at Genoa, where Lecce lost 2-1 against the Rossoblù. Falcone earned a 6.5 in the match ratings, a reasonable return given the scoreline, and the Gazzetta noted he was beaten rather than culpable — Retegui and a Ekuban overhead kick doing the damage. The defeat extended Lecce's difficulties on the road and underlined a pattern: the team can compete for a half, then lose the thread. Di Francesco himself acknowledged the problem after the Genoa match, citing a lack of mental clarity in the second period.
That psychological fragility is the backdrop to Monday's fixture. Fiorentina arrive without Kean, which removes their most direct attacking threat, and they come off an elimination from the Conference League — a squad carrying its own fatigue and anxiety. For Lecce, and for Falcone specifically, the conditions are as favourable as they are likely to get at this stage of the season.
The goalkeeper's AI overall rating of 55 out of 100 — with a potential ceiling of 45, indicating a player already past his developmental peak — frames him accurately: a reliable Serie A operator, not a transformative one. At 31, Falcone is the kind of goalkeeper who keeps a struggling side competitive without single-handedly rescuing it. Lecce's survival does not hinge on one performance from him. It hinges on whether Di Francesco can finally extract a full ninety minutes of collective discipline from a group that has shown it can play, but rarely for long enough.
Monday is not a final. It is, however, the kind of match that separates sides that go down fighting from those that simply go down.