The highly entertaining match took place at the Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence on Thursday night, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Poland’s Lech had lost the home leg 1-4 against the illustrious Italian side, and seemed to face an uphill task in trying to advance to the semifinals, according to PAP.
Yet thanks to an attacking, high-press style, the Polish champions went close to causing a major upset and knocking out the much more fancied Fiorentina, it said.
Portuguese playmaker Afonso Sousa gave Lech the lead on 9 minutes with a left-footed finish from inside the box, after a defensive mistake from Fiorentina’s Lorenzo Venutti.
Lech’s Norwegian winger Kristoffer Velde then made it 2-0 from the penalty spot on 65 minutes, after Aleksa Terzić had brought down Michał Skóraś.
Four minutes later, Artur Sobiech scored Lech’s third goal, finishing off Jesper Karlström’s pass from close range.
At that point, the tie was level 4-4 on aggregate and heading to extra time.
Lech had managed to claw back the deficit from the first leg. They needed just one more goal to go through.
Fiorentina score two late goals to edge out Lech on aggregate
Facing a hard battle to advance in the competition, the Italian side regained dominance in the final 15 minutes, the PAP news agency reported.
Fiorentina scored twice through Riccardo Sottil (78) and Gaetano Castrovilli (90+2) and the game finished 3-2 to Lech, which meant that the Italian team won the tie 6-4 on aggregate and progressed to the UEFA Conference League semifinals.
Fiorentina will now play FC Basel of Switzerland for a place in the final.
Meanwhile, Lech’s memorable 2022/2023 UEFA Europa Conference League campaign is over after more than nine months and 20 matches.
Lech’s coach John van den Brom told UEFA’s website: "What we did today, for me, it's just the beginning. We have to believe in ourselves. Fiorentina are in the semifinals and we are out. It wasn't enough but what we did was just great."
He added: "In Poznań no one saw the real Lech, but today we did something extraordinary. We believed right from the start and pressed a lot. They are strong and it was important to win second balls. Fiorentina also got nervous and had to make some changes, so I'm very proud of what we did."
Lech in May last year won the Polish premier league championship for the eighth time.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, UEFA