The Football Manager 2019 beta is now live! That means I will be launching my first FM19 story – “Shades of Deep Purple” – very soon on Fuller FM. Over the course of that save, I will aim to restore Fiorentina to their former glories in Serie A and Europe.
To whet your appetite, let me take you on a mini-tour through Florence – and the history of ACF Fiorentina – before giving you a taster of what’s to come. This will be quite a long post, so you might want to get yourself a snack first.
WELCOME TO FLORENCE
Florence (or Firenze in Italian) is the capital city of Tuscany – a large region in central Italy. The city covers an area of over 100 square kilometres and is home to over 375,000 people.
Modern Florence was established by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar in 59 BCE, originally as a settlement for retired soldiers. The city would change hands multiple times over the next millennium before flourishing as a trade centre of medieval Europe.
Between the 14th and 16th centuries, Florentine art was widely coveted, with Sandro Botticelli and Filippo Lippi being amongst the city’s best-known painters. The popularity of Florentine writers such as Dante Alighieri (“Divine Comedy”) and Niccolò Machiavelli later helped the local dialect to become the basis of the modern Italian language.
Florence was the capital city of the Kingdom of Italy for six years from 1865. The city would double in population during the 19th century, and then triple during the 20th, thanks in part to growing trade and tourism industries.
Florence remains a major tourist attraction, especially amongst lovers of Renaissance art. The Uffizi gallery [above] is one of the world’s most-visited art museums, while the historic centre of Florence was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.
There’s also a case to argue that Florence is the spiritual home of Italian football. In the 16th century, the sport of ‘calcio fiorentino’ – an early form of football and rugby – was widely played in the city. ‘Calcio’ was later adopted as the Italian name for modern association football.
FIORENTINA: THE EARLY YEARS
Associazione Calcio Fiorentina was founded in 1926 by Luigi Ridolfi – a local noble who merged two local clubs to form a team that could compete with Italy’s top football teams of the time. The team originally played in red-and-white jerseys, but the legend goes that the colours mixed into a shade of purple while they were washed in the Arno river one day. Fiorentina have been known as the Viola since then.
This new club was first promoted to the top-tier Serie A in 1931. In the same year, they moved into a new stadium – the Stadio Giovanni Berta. Some time later, when Berta’s fascist links became problematic, the ground was renamed as the Stadio Artemio Franchi, after a former president of the Italian Football Federation.
After a rough start to life at the top tier, Fiorentina settled into their new position and won their first major trophy – the Coppa Italia – in 1941. The following decade saw the Viola establish themselves as a top-five club. By 1955/1956, a formidable team headed by left-back Sergio Cervato and Brazilian winger Julinho had won the club’s first league championship – named the ‘scudetto’ in Italian football.
Fiorentina earned further recognition in 1957, when they became the first Italian side to reach a European Cup Final. Much like everyone else in those days, they were beaten by the legendary Real Madrid team of Alfredo Di Stefano et al. They went one better in 1961, defeating Rangers home-and-away to become the first Cup Winners’ Cup… winners.
Though Fiorentina lost the Cup Winners’ Cup the following year to Atlético Madrid, another major trophy would come their way in the 1968/1969 season. An epic championship race edned with the Viola [team pictured] pipping Cagliari and AC Milan to their second – and most recent – scudetto.
The next decade saw little success, though legendary midfield playmaker Giancarlo Antognoni did lead them to the 1975 Coppa Italia. Antognoni would go on to make a club-record 429 appearances in 15 years.
A RIVALRY IS BORN
A takeover by housing magnate Flavio Pontello in 1980 resulted in Fiorentina spending big to try and challenge the supremacy of Juventus and the Milan clubs. The closest they came to succeeding was in 1981/1982, when they pushed Juve all the way to the final day of the Serie A season.
With both teams level on 44 points, everything was up for grabs. Fiorentina were at lowly Cagliari, where they had a goal disallowed en route to a disappointing 0-0 draw. Meanwhile in Catanzaro, a controversial Juventus penalty saw ‘La Vecchia Signora’ claim a 1-0 win, and a record-extending 20th scudetto. Antognoni angrily declared in the aftermath, “They have stolen the title”, stoking the fire for a fierce rivalry between Fiorentina and Juventus.
The two foes would contend for honours again at the 1990 UEFA Cup Final. Juventus won the first leg 3-1 in Turin, leaving them firm favourites going into the second leg. The Franchi was being renovated ahead of the World Cup, and crowd disturbances during the Semi Final against Werder Bremen saw Fiorentina banned from playing at their temporary home in Perugia. The second leg was subsequently moved to Avellino – a southern town that housed many Juve supporters.
Fiorentina were unable to win their ‘home’ leg, and a goalless draw saw the continental glory go to their arch-rivals. Then, as if to rub salt into the wounds, Juve set their sights on signing the Viola’s young ponytailed striker Roberto Baggio [above], who’d scored 17 goals in the Serie A season just gone. Baggio’s goals arguably saved Fiorentina from relegation after what had been a miserable domestic campaign.
Pontello was in dire financial straits by now, and he had little choice but to sell Baggio when Juve offered a world-record 25 billion lire (£8million). The decision infuriated many Viola ‘Ultras’, leading to riots on the streets of the city. Later that year, Pontello sold the club to film director Mario Cecchi Gori.
THE CECCHI GORI YEARS
The early days of Cecchi Gori’s reign showed plenty of promise. He invested in some exceptional talents such as midfielders Brian Laudrup and Stefan Effenberg, though it was striker Gabriel Batistuta [above] who became the firmest fan favourite. Between 1991 and 2000, the long-haired Argentine would find the net 207 times for the Viola (one short of Kurt Hamrin‘s club record), earning him the nickname ‘Batigol’.
However, in 1993, double disaster struck. Cecchi Gori died suddenly, with his son Vittorio taking over the presidency, and Fiorentina were relegated to Serie B on the final day. A young tinkerman named Claudio Ranieri soon took over the reins, securing an immediate return to the top flight for the 1994/1995 season.
The Viola soon re-established themselves in the top half of Serie A, with Portuguese midfielder Rui Costa soon joining Batistuta in becoming a club icon. Ranieri won the Coppa Italia in 1996, though it was his successor-but-one Giovanni Trapattoni who took Fiorentina into the Champions League in 1999, following a 3rd-place finish in Serie A.
Fiorentina’s first dalliance with the rebranded European Cup ended at the second group stage, though they claimed memorable victories over Arsenal and Manchester United. That would be Batistuta’s last hurrah at the Franchi before he was sold to Roma in the summer of 2000. Trapattoni also moved on, having been appointed to succeed Dino Zoff as head coach of the Italian national team.
Enrico Chiesa might have been Fiorentina’s main goal-getter in 2000/2001, but Batigol was obviously missed. While the Argentine’s new club won the scudetto, his former comrades limped home 9th, though Roberto Mancini – fresh from a very brief stay at Leicester City – coached the Viola to victory over Parma in the Coppa Italia Final. That represents Fiorentina’s last major honour to date.
Then it all went pear-shaped. The appalling state of Fiorentina’s finances was exposed in 2001, and even the €44million sale of Costa to Milan did relatively little to ease the situation. With players going unpaid, the Viola slumped towards the bottom of Serie A, suffering relegation after winning just five of their 34 matches.
Despite Vittorio Cecchi Gori’s best efforts to raise funds, Fiorentina could not carry on in its current state. The club went into administration in June 2002, effectively being declared bankrupt.
A NEW ERA
In August 2002, a shoe entrepreneur named Diego Della Valle came to the aid of Florence’s grieving football fans. He formed a new club – Associazione Calcio Fiorentina e Florentia Viola – and entered it into Serie C2 (the fourth division of Italian football).
Only one player from the original club – former Italy midfielder Angelo Di Livio – agreed to stay on for what was expected to be a long road back to the big time. Di Livio inspired Viola to comfortably win their Serie C2 group, losing just four matches. That would have earned them promotion to Serie C1, but with Serie B expanding from 20 teams to 24 (thanks in no small part to Catania), Fiorentina were controversially given a free pass to the second tier on “sports merits”.
Before the 2003/2004 season, Della Valle bought back the rights to the old club’s name, and thus the new incarnation was rebranded ACF Fiorentina. Serie B proved to be more of a struggle for Fiorentina, but they finished 6th and went into a two-legged play-off with Perugia for their place in Serie A. The Viola won 2-1 on aggregate, thus completing a surprisingly swift recovery.
Fiorentina survived their first season back in Serie A and then finished 4th, with late-bloomer Luca Toni in sensational scoring form. However, the Viola were then provisionally relegated to Serie B for the 2006/2007 over their involvement in the ‘Calciopoli’ rigging scandal. They were reinstated to the top flight on appeal, though with the caveat of a hefty points deduction and being stripped of their Champions League place.
The points deduction also ultimately cost Fiorentina a place in the 2007/2008 Champions League, though would dine at Europe’s top table for the next two seasons. Their continental exploits in 2009/2010 ended with an away-goals defeat in the Last 16 to Bayern München, who were wrongly awarded an offside goal in the first leg. The Viola have yet to return to the competition.
Cesare Prandelli’s five-year reign as head coach ended in 2010, and for a while, the club struggled for stability without him. It wasn’t until Vincenzo Montella’s appointment in 2012 that things began to look up again. Montella guided Fiorentina to the Coppa Italia Final in 2014 (losing to Napoli), and the Europa League Semi Final in 2015 (losing to that competition’s dominant force, Sevilla).
Montella left the Franchi in 2015 after finishing in Serie A’s top four for three successive seasons. Paulo Sousa replaced him, though he was dismissed two years later after the Viola missed out on Europe. Perhaps the only real positive to come out of the 2016/2017 season was the emergence of an exciting teenage forward named Federico Chiesa – son of Enrico.
New coach Stefano Pioli couldn’t improve on Sousa’s 8th-place finish in 2017/2018, though there were mitigating circumstances this time. The sudden, tragic death of inspirational captain Davide Astori [above] on 4 March 2018 plunged Fiorentina into mourning. Though the Viola won their next five games following Astori’s passing, a late-season slump cost them a place in the Europa League, and Pioli his job.
AND HERE’S WHERE I COME IN
Fiorentina head into the 2018/2019 Serie A season as a club with a lot of potential. Having scored 10 goals in his first two senior seasons, the hope is that Federico Chiesa – now 20 and a senior Italy international – will really kick on and join the ranks of club legends such as Batistuta, Costa and Antognoni.
Batigol may be long gone, but his spirit arguably lives on in 23-year-old Giovanni Simeone [above, #9] – another Argentine goal-getter who’s wasted little time in endearing himself to Viola followers. The son of Batistuta’s former national team-mate Diego Simeone, Giovanni scored 14 Serie A goals for his new club after signing from Genoa last summer. There may just be more where that came from.
With Astori sadly no longer around, Fiorentina are in need of a new leader. The favourite to succeed him as club captain is the club’s other Argentine – central defender Germán Pezzella. The 27-year-old has made last season’s loan move from Real Betis permanent, having proven himself to be a strong, confident influence at the back.
The Viola have also brought in several new faces, a couple of whom are with one eye on the future. French goalkeeper Alban Lafont (19) could be the club’s long-term number 1 following his €8.5million signing from Toulouse. Hopes are also high for Slovakian centre-half Dávid Hancko (20), who was a €3.5million purchase from MŠK Žilina in his homeland. All being well, Hancko and the Serbian Nikola Milenković (also 20) could keep the defence shipshape for years to come.
Four players have arrived on loan, three of whom have an option to be signed permanently next summer. They include Everton’s experienced Belgian forward Kevin Mirallas, and 23-year-old Juventus winger Marko Pjaca, who has just returned from Russia as a World Cup runner-up with Croatia.
I will provide a more in-depth squad report in Part 1 of “Shades of Deep Purple”. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with my goals for this save.
MY PLANS
I want to continue the Fiorentina tradition of playing attractive football with a heavy South American influence. Our primary formation will be a 4-3-3 wide, though I will go into more detail about my tactical plans in Part 1.
I will largely build my team around our best young players, with the aim of building a dynasty at the Franchi. I want the likes of Milenković [above], Chiesa and Simeone to still be wearing those famous purple jerseys when they enter the prime of their careers.
Juventus are the dominant force of Serie A, having won seven consecutive scudetti, and they’ve just spent €100million on a certain Portuguese preener. They will be very difficult to overtake, as will Napoli, who pushed the Bianconeri close last season. Roma, Internazionale, Lazio and AC Milan completed the top six and thus will be our main rivals for the foreseeable future.
My objectives for the next three seasons are as follows:
- 2018/2019: After two years out of Europe, Europa League qualification is the minimum expectation. Finishing in the top four and getting into the Champions League would be a bonus. A shorter schedule compared to the bigger teams should allow us to concentrate on the league, and possibly also the Coppa Italia.
- 2019/2020: If we don’t qualify for the Champions League in the first season, we really should do it at the second attempt. By now, I should have made the team my own, with some new acquisitions working alongside the more established names.
- 2020/2021: I’m hopeful that we will be in a strong position to at least challenge for the scudetto by now. Progressing to at least the Last 16 of the Champions League, or the Final of the Europa League, is paramount.
Whether I play on beyond that depends on how I feel about the save. If I’ve achieved everything I’ve wanted to (or if I feel like we’re getting nowhere), I’ll call it a career and move on to my next challenge. If I feel there’s still more work to do, I’d be happy to carry on for another season or two. I’ve also made contigency plans in case my reign at Fiorentina is suddenly cut short, but I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.
Right, I think that’s more than enough for now. I’m already excited about this new challenge with Fiorentina, and I hope you are too. Part 1 will hopefully be ready to go live over the weekend.
“Forza viola!”
Fuller FM 