Inter 2-1 Fiorentina: Thuram and a Zielinski penalty win it in the 97th minute

Inter needed seven minutes of added time to save a game they had controlled without scoring for most of it. Álex Jiménez put bottom-of-the-table Fiorentina ahead in the 65th minute, and the lead held until the first minute of stoppage time, when Marcus Thuram forced it back level. Six minutes into the restart, with Fiorentina down to ten men in all but name as nerves frayed at the back, Piotr Zielinski stepped up and converted a penalty to turn a draw that would have embarrassed the league leaders into a 2-1 win.

A dominant hour that produced nothing

The numbers told their own story even before the goals did. Inter had 63.3% of the ball and finished with 11 shots on target to Fiorentina's two, yet it was the visitors who broke the deadlock: Jiménez's 65th-minute finish, assisted by Nicolò Fagioli, came against the run of play and threatened to hand Fiorentina their first away result of real substance all season. Cristian Chivu's side kept pushing without reward until Marcus Thuram, sent clean through by substitute Andy Diouf, beat David de Gea in the 90th+1st minute to drag Inter level at the death.

Zielinski off the bench, then from the spot

Piotr Zielinski had been among the substitutes introduced as Inter chased the equaliser, and he was still on the pitch when the game swung Inter's way for good. Six minutes into stoppage time, with Fiorentina collecting cautions in quick succession as the game slipped away from them, Inter won a penalty and Zielinski sent it past de Gea to make it 2-1 — the sixth and seventh minutes of a seven-minute injury-time period deciding the match. It was the kind of finish that turns a missed opportunity into two points, and at San Siro, in front of their own supporters, Inter's bench erupted as if a title had been won rather than a routine home fixture against the bottom club.

Fiorentina's discipline cracked as the game slipped away

Three of Fiorentina's four cautions came after the 70th minute, as Viery, Víctor Valdepeñas and finally Dodô were all booked in the closing exchanges — a side chasing the game and fouling under pressure rather than committing cynically from the start. It capped a frustrating afternoon for a team that had defended well enough for an hour to leave with something, only to lose it in the four minutes either side of the 90th that decided the contest.

Form going into it

Inter arrived having won six of their first seven Serie A games this season, the only blemish a 2-2 draw at Roma, and had just beaten Parma and Bologna domestically either side of Champions League defeats to Real Madrid and Club Brugge — a stretch of results that already had them top of the table before kick-off. Fiorentina, by contrast, had lost three of their last five Serie A games, including back-to-back defeats at Genoa and at home to Como before this trip to Milan, and sit with Serie A's worst defensive record this season: 19 goals conceded in eight games, more than any other side in the division after this result.

Scorers

• 65' — Álex Jiménez (Fiorentina), assisted by Nicolò Fagioli
• 90+1' — Marcus Thuram (Inter), assisted by Andy Diouf
• 90+7' — Piotr Zielinski (Inter, penalty)

Match facts

Line-ups

Where it leaves the table

The win keeps Inter top of Serie A on 22 points from eight games, level with Lazio but ahead on goal difference (+13 to +11), and four clear of third-placed Roma. Fiorentina stay 19th with 4 points, inside the relegation zone alongside Udinese and bottom side Venezia, and still without an away win of real substance this season despite having pushed the league leaders to the final minutes of this one.

What's next

Inter move on with the kind of late winner that keeps a title push alive even on an off-day, while Fiorentina will point to an hour of defensive discipline that very nearly brought a result at the top of the table — and will need to find a way to hold onto a lead for more than 25 minutes if performances like this one are going to start turning into points instead of what-ifs.