Franco Mastantuono was the decisive figure in Fiorentina’s first victory of the Serie A season, scoring a hat-trick in a 4-2 win over Venezia. At 19 years and 28 days old, the Argentine became the youngest player from his country to score a treble in one of Europe’s five major leagues.
The mark had belonged to Lionel Messi, who was 19 years and 259 days old when he scored his first hat-trick for Barcelona in the 3-3 draw with Real Madrid at Camp Nou in March 2007. Mastantuono lowered that record by 231 days. The list of other notable Argentines underlines the scale of the achievement: Mauro Icardi scored his at 19 years and 343 days, while Gonzalo Higuaín was 20 years and 334 days old.
Fiorentina needed the performance. Venezia took the lead in the 22nd minute through Akor Adams, but Mastantuono replied with two almost consecutive goals in the 29th and 30th minutes to turn the score around before half-time. Fiorentina extended their advantage in the second half through Mateo Pellegrino, who scored in the 66th minute after a move started by Nicolò Fagioli. Venezia tried to pull one back, but Fiorentina kept control of the result until Mastantuono appeared again in the 84th minute. The Argentine received the ball inside the box, tried to beat goalkeeper Filip Stankovic and, after the rebound, the ball hit him in the face before going into the net. It was his first professional hat-trick and made it 1-4. Antoine Hainaut scored two minutes later to make the final score 2-4.
The hat-trick arrived at the end of a difficult start for Fiorentina, who had lost their first three Serie A matches and went into the game against Venezia still without a point. The victory allowed the Florence side to get off zero in the standings and move into fifteenth place after the fourth matchday.
For Mastantuono, the match ended his wait for goals since arriving in Italian football. He had not scored in his previous games for Fiorentina and needed just 30 minutes to score twice and set the comeback on course, with the third goal completing the first hat-trick of his career. The treble also made him the youngest foreign footballer to score three goals in the same Serie A match and the youngest Fiorentina player to achieve it, surpassing the record previously held by Claudio Desolati.
It was Mastantuono’s goalscoring debut in his fourth league match as a Fiorentina player, and it came in the first game in charge of the team’s new coach, Paolo Vanoli, following the dismissal of Grosso, who had taken zero points from the opening three league matches.