Inter’s 2-1 win over Fiorentina turned on two penalty incidents involving Marcus Thuram, with the first waved away after an initial indication from referee Maurizio Mariani and the second awarded deep into stoppage time.
Two decisive moments in the area
- Fiorentina had recently taken the lead through Jimenez when, in the 69th minute, Thuram collected the ball on the right side of the Inter attack and drove into the penalty area.
- As the French forward tried to move inside, Fiorentina defender Viery stretched out his right leg in an attempt to stop him. Contact with Thuram’s left leg sent the Inter player to the ground, and he appealed immediately for a penalty.
- Mariani appeared at first to point towards the spot, but reversed that decision and allowed play to continue. VAR did not call the referee to the monitor for a review.
- Inter’s later pressure produced a second confrontation between Thuram and the Fiorentina defence in the 95th minute. Valdepenas was judged to have held the forward clearly inside the box.
- This time Mariani awarded the penalty without hesitation. Piotr Zielinski took responsibility from the spot and scored Inter’s winner, completing a 2-1 result.
A late twist in Inter’s afternoon
The contrast between the two episodes gave the match its defining controversy. Thuram’s first appeal brought no intervention despite the visible contact, while the late holding offence against him produced the decisive spot-kick.
For Inter, Zielinski’s 95th-minute finish settled an afternoon in which Fiorentina had briefly put themselves ahead through Jimenez, only for the final chapter to be written from the penalty spot.
