After a strong start to the match, Venezia piling up turnovers and conceding the balance of play. But still scoreless.
Busio wrecked in front of goal - and called for a foul as he runs into the back of the defender shielding him off the ball inside the 6.
Scoreless at the half, which feels fair. Busio not as influential as he'd have like - not a ton of touches, but did have a nice chance created. Three points are there for the taking for either side in the second half. Richardson OK overall as well.
GOAL VENEZIA - Cande makes it 1-0 good guys with his first Venezia goal. Kike Perez drives one into the mixer at the penalty spot, where Cande chests it past a defender and finishes past De Gea who barely had time to establish a position.
WHAT A MOMENT - Radu comes up with an excellent save that springs the counter. Busio and three others sprint forward. Oristanio pulls it back, switches fields to Zerbin, who chips a back post cross back to Oristanio, who heads down from short range to beat De Gea near post. 2-0, though there's an offside VAR check.
Mandragora somehow scores while being covered heavily and slipping, to make it 2-1 Venezia. Double sub for Venezia, Doumbia and Maric on for Kike Perez and Yeboah.
Cavigila with a super-aggressive knuckling long free kick - would have been really fun in De Gea had failed to handle it. Condé has to come off after suffering a nasty tackle, and it helps mean 7 minutes of stoppage
Beltran gets a yellow for fouling Busio - that's three pretty cardable fouls (two given) on Fiorentina in the last five minutes, including an injury that needed treatment. Ranieri gets a yellow for objecting to a pretty obvious yellow card foul.
Folorunsho beats Busio to a header in the box, but the challenge may have helped cause the shot to be weak and easily saved.
Full time! Venezia hold on to a late lead, finally! Into 17th place, with their nose in front with two to play. Busio with more guts and spirit than quality on the day, but it's huge for Venezia, and to a lesser extent, Milan and Juve.
They still have their work cut out to survive. Empoli has the easiest schedule of the 3 most likely to join Monza. Parma also has a brutal run in, but may have just enough now.
Also of note is that Serie A doesn't rely on Goal Differential (which is favorable for Venezia) to break relegation ties. It would be a two-legged playoff to determine who stays up.
Busio starts against Cagliari as Venezia try to stay above the drop zone. Was just lining up a dangerous flick-on header, foiled when a defender barely got a touch on it, leaving Gianluca helpless to change body position and aim it properly. Cagliari scored early to lead 1-0, which is exactly what we didn't need.
Piccoli puts one in the net off a corner, but he's getting called for shoving down a defender on his way to the header. Since he did shove, tough to reverse this.