Fiorentina Women travel to Hellas Verona on Saturday afternoon looking to bounce back from the defeat to Juventus last time out – and coach Antonio Cincotta is keen for his side to build on the positive performance against the Italian champions, despite the disappointing result.

“It wasn’t the result we wanted, but you have to applaud the performance,” said Cincotta. “We’ve analysed the Juventus game this week and I congratulated all of the girls individually. The stats show that we caused them more problems than any other side has this season. Nobody in the league has competed with them the way we did, but unfortunately eventually our issues showed. It wasn’t the result we wanted but the performance was good.”

The theme of Fiorentina playing well but not getting results has become a recurring one this season, with Cincotta calling for more killer instinct moving forward.

“We need to be more clinical in front of goal,” he said. “We’ve analysed our last few games in the Champions League and Serie A and found that we created 14 chances but scored just one goal. That shows that we need more composure. The whole side needs to contribute and that’s why we’ve been doing a lot of work on finishing.”

Cincotta did have some positive team news after a gruelling run for the squad.

“We’ve got [Martina] Piemonte and [Stephanie] Breitner back and they’re returning to full fitness,” he said. “We need to be more cautious with [Alice] Tortelli and [Claudia] Neto. The absence of our centre-backs has been devastating for us.”

Fiorentina lost the reverse fixture against Hellas Verona 1-0 earlier in the season, succumbing to a second-half penalty despite a dominant display, and Cincotta is determined that his team will avoid a repeat scenario on Saturday.

“The reverse fixture was strange because we created a lot of chances but didn’t take any of them,” he said. “That shows that we all need to work harder. Verona have won their last two and will be doing everything they can to get to safety and cause us problems. We’ve never lost our enthusiasm – we show total commitment in our work, we never give up and our recent performances show that we’re still alive. We’ll continue to give the best possible account of ourselves for the fans, for the people that love us, for Joe Barone and for the president.”