Serie A | Torino 1-0 Empoli: Vlasic punishes wasteful Tuscans for victory

epa11967062 Torino’s Nikola Vlasic jubilates after scoring the 1-0 during the Italian Serie A soccer match Torino FC vs Empoli FC at the Allianz Stadium in Turin, Italy, 15 March 2025. EPA-EFE/Alessandro Di Marco

Empoli paid the price for wasteful finishing, as Nikola Vlasic pounced on a loose ball to give Torino three important points instead.

The Granata were hoping to build on a good spell of form after beating Milan and Monza, then drawing 2-2 with Parma, despite missing Antonio Sanabria, Alieu Njie, Duvan Zapata, Perr Schuurs and Emirhan Ilkhan. Empoli were in the Coppa Italia semi-finals, yet scraped three draws from their last 13 Serie A fixtures going into this weekend. The lengthy injury list remained intact, including Youssef Maleh, Tino Anjorin, Ardian Ismajli, Mattia Viti, Ola Solbakken, Nicolas Haas, Szymon Zurkowski, Tyronne Ebuehi, Saba Sazonov and Pietro Pellegri.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Gvidas Gineitis charged down a Liam Henderson effort with his chin in the opening minutes and Vanja Milinkovic-Savic came sprinting out to clear as Christian Kouame pounced on a poor Guillermo Maripan back-pass.

Nikola Vlasic tested Marco Silvestri from distance, while Emanuel Gyasi stung Milinkovic-Savic’s gloves from the tightest of angles and Saul Coco could only hit the side-netting on a corner.

Junior Sambia should’ve put Empoli in front on 34 minutes when left relatively unmarked to meet the Giuseppe Pezzella cross from the left, but got the volley all wrong from 12 yards.

Pezzella also fired over from the edge of the box, while Ardian Ismajli nodded over after Milinkovic-Savic flapped at a corner.

Torino moved to a three-man defence for the restart and Adam Masina failed to keep his free header down on Cristiano Biraghi’s corner, but Gyasi was again wasteful by ballooning over when sent through by Kouame on the counter-attack.

Empoli were punished for being so wasteful and for failing to clear a long ball forward, as Vlasic held off Luca Marianucci to sweep the loose ball into the far bottom corner from the edge of the area with the inside of the right boot.

Torino had the ball in the back of the net again on 81 minutes when Silvestri parried a Biraghi free kick into the path of Masina, but the wide man had wandered offside.

Ibrahima Konate had a half-volley on target with the last kick of the game, but that too was an easy take for Milinkovic-Savic.

Torino 1-0 Empoli

Vlasic 70 (T)

32

13

23

4

46′

83′

66

63′

10

90′

28

18

1

34

3

7

76′

13

35

5

6

86′

18

11

99

67′

77

8

1

17

16

24

21

5

46′

20

63′

7

83′

61

90′

22

24

98

12

23

36

2

31

89

41

29

67′

76′

90

86′