Torino came to the Stadio Artemio Franchi and left with three points, overturning a Fiorentina lead with two goals in eight second-half minutes to win 1-2 and hand the hosts a third consecutive Serie A defeat.
Fiorentina had taken the lead two minutes into the second half, Fiorentina forward Mateo Pellegrino converting with an assist from defender Radu Drăguşin at 47'. The goal arrived against the grain of Fiorentina's recent form — the hosts had been held scoreless across their two previous league outings — and it came shortly after Fiorentina coach Fabio Grosso had made two substitutions at the break, introducing Arthur Atta and Wilfried Gnonto. That Grosso needed two changes before the 45-minute mark, with Cher Ndour already having come on for Christ Inao Oulaï at 24', tells its own story about the fragility of the home side's structure. Three substitutions before half-time is an unusual volume, and the data offers no stated cause for the early changes.
Torino coach Ignazio Abate responded with a double substitution of his own at 56', sending on Nathan Patterson and Rafik Belghali. The effect was immediate. Torino midfielder Rolando Mandragora equalised at 74', assisted by defender Eray Cömert, restoring parity and shifting the psychological weight of the match. Eight minutes later, at 82', Torino forward Che Adams converted with an assist from Belghali — the substitute who had been on the pitch for just over twenty minutes — to complete the turnaround and settle the result.
Adams is the key individual here. His goal was the decisive one, arriving when Fiorentina had already introduced Beto in place of Pellegrino at 76' and Pote for Alieu Njie at 79', suggesting Grosso was chasing the game rather than managing it. Belghali's assist for Adams underlined how effectively Abate's second-half changes altered the contest: a substitute setting up a substitute for the winning goal is a coaching decision that paid off with precision.
Fiorentina's evening encapsulates a broader problem. Across their last three matches in all competitions, Grosso's side have conceded nine goals and scored one — the Pellegrino goal here their only return across that span. The lead at 47' briefly suggested a correction was possible, but the defensive structure that had already shipped seven goals in two league games before this fixture could not hold. Torino's equaliser came from a set move involving a defender in Cömert, and the winner arrived through a substitute combination, both of which point to organisational vulnerabilities that a single goal lead cannot paper over.
Torino's own form coming into this fixture was hardly convincing — Abate's side had won one of their last three matches, with defeats against AC Milan and Sassuolo in their two previous Serie A outings. This result, however, represents a meaningful shift in trajectory. Across their last five matches in all competitions, Torino have collected six points, and the win at the Franchi is their first away Serie A victory of the campaign. The second-half substitutions were not merely tactical adjustments; they were the mechanism through which Abate extracted a result his side had not looked capable of producing before the interval.
Torino came to Florence without a league win and left with one. Fiorentina remain without a point in Serie A, and the gap between where this club expects to be and where it currently sits is measured not in goals but in the absence of any defensive coherence whatsoever.