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Fiorentina use three early strikes to stun Roma

Brilliant Fiorentina stunned Roma with an early goal blitz to seal their spot in the Europa League quarterfinals at the expense of their Italian rivals.

Roma might have held a narrow advantage after drawing the first leg 1-1 in Florence but any hopes of progressing were sunk inside 21 minutes on Thursday as Gonzalo Rodriguez, Marcos Alonso and Jose Maria Basanta all netted for Fiorentina.

The visitors might have extended their lead further in the second half, Mohamed Salah hitting the woodwork twice, but in the end the 3-0 scoreline was more than enough to send them through as sorry Roma finished with 10 men following Adem Ljajic's late dismissal.

Roma have lost their way somewhat over the last month and their disappointing form caught up with them in emphatic fashion early on in this match.

The influential Salah had already fired a warning shot over the bar when Fiorentina took the lead through Rodriguez's eight-minute penalty after Jose Holebas' clumsy challenge on Matias Fernandez.

Rodriguez sent Lukasz Skorupski the wrong way from the spot and then, after being ordered to re-take the penalty, did exactly the same going the other way.

Then, in the 18th minute, came arguably the key incident of the tie as Alonso took advantage of a glaring mistake by Skorupski to give Fiorentina a second away goal.

In attempting to try and keep an errant back-header in play, Skorupski succeeded only in palming the ball back into the path of Alonso, who nicked it away and slotted into an empty net.

If that was not bad enough for the capital club, worse was to follow as more poor defending allowed Fiorentina to make it 3-0 three minutes later as Basanta was left unmarked to power home a header from Fernandez's corner.

With a quarter-final berth fast disappearing, Rome tried to grab a lifeline and Ljajic drew a parry out of Murara Neto before Miralem Pjanic's near-post header from a corner was cleared off the line by Borja Valero.

Roma could not find the foothold they needed before the break though, and they could easily have been further behind inside 12 second-half minutes.

Salah did all the hard work as he stormed into the area only to curl against the crossbar, before the on-loan Chelsea winger set up Khouma El Babacar for a clear shot that Skorupski did well to turn behind.

Fernandez also drew a parry out of Skorupski as Fiorentina continued to breach the struggling Roma defence almost at will.

Roma tried to rally again, Gervinho rounding Neto only to be denied by a crucial sliding tackle, while Alessandro Florenzi was unfortunate to see his acrobatic effort go straight at the Fiorentina goalkeeper.

But they never really looked like getting back into and it could have been even worse for them as Salah curled a 20-yarder against the post before Ljajic picked up a second yellow late on.