Fiorentina’s Nightmare – How low can the Viola go?

For a side which has been regular in Europe recently, Fiorentina’s fall to the bottom of the league has been dramatic. Giancarlo Rinaldi looks at the causes of their disastrous decline.

There are storm clouds gathering over the Fiesole hills. The skies above Florence have been growing more and more ominously dark with each passing week as its team still searches for a first Serie A win. The streets of the Renaissance city have been thundering with just one word – Retrocessione – relegation.

That has only happened a couple of times since the war to these famous purple colours – and one of those had much to do with financial disaster rather than inability on the field of play. Make no mistake, the Tuscan side are among Italian football’s historical elite. But that will do them no good whatsoever if they continue to play as badly as they have been. How have the recent Conference League specialists fallen so far, so fast?

One element in the mix has been managerial instability. Those who grumbled about the lack of trophies under Vincenzo Italiano must now be casting envious glances over the Apennines after he won the Coppa Italia with Bologna and now jousts in European competitions that his old team can only dream about. His football could be frustrating at times, for sure, but there was a clear template of how he wanted his sides to play.

His successor, Raffaele Palladino, seemed to struggle in that regard, but he did – one way or another – take the Viola back into Europe, but then something went wrong. Under circumstances which remain less than clear, he left the Stadio Artemio Franchi almost immediately after that qualification was secured. The jungle drums suggested he did not see eye to eye with sporting director Daniele Pradè who, of course, would soon be packing his cases as well.

In came Stefano Pioli, a supposedly safe pair of hands, but after a sluggish start, his team failed to pick up momentum. It was an unimaginative choice, perhaps, but not one anybody expected to be quite so abysmal. Performances remained so woeful that there was little choice but to shake things up with the voluble and very animated Paolo Vanoli. The trouble is, there has been no new manager bounce at all. The displays remain largely the same as they were – drab, dismal and with confidence as easy to snap as Tuscan schiacciata bread.

That, in turn, brings us to another part of this Florentine crisis – the tactical straitjacket the team finds itself stuck in. While Italiano liked a selection of infuriating wide men in his side – think Jonathan Ikoné or Ricky Sottil – such players were systematically eliminated under Palladino. It has left their latest coach playing a kind of midfielder lottery with a string of under-performing players – only Rolando Mandragora has performed passably – and no options to really change things. The situation has become so chronic that the previously unwanted Christian Kouamé has been considered an option. The January window cannot come soon enough if they wish to try something different.

That brings us to another element of this disaster, the players. Hindsight is easy, but perhaps the players retained were not the ones needed. For a variety of reasons Yacine Adli, Danilo Cataldi and Edoardo Bove are no longer in Florence and it is hard not to feel nostalgic for their contribution. Nicolò Fagioli has largely proved his doubters at Juventus right, Hans Nicolussi Caviglia has been too slow and predictable and Simon Sohm – after a good start – has faded badly. Other new arrivals like Edin Dzeko and Roberto Piccoli have failed to deliver, too, and Moise Kean has struggled to produce much with very little service. The defence, meanwhile, has become one of the most leaky in Italy. Too many players have gone backwards and there is too much uncertainty about who the first choice back line are.

Off the pitch, too, things are not great. President Rocco Commisso has had some health issues, prompting rumours that he might want to sell, and the project to reconstruct the Stadio Artemio Franchi is dragging on much longer than anticipated. The departure of Pradè might have given the fans the sacrificial lamb they wanted, but it has failed to make much of a difference to the team. Everything needs to get sorted soon if they hope to steady the ship and, eventually, point it back up the table.

And the fans, of course, are in uproar. Florence is a beautiful place, and its team has great support, but it is also something of a goldfish bowl as a one-team city. That can lead to all sorts of rumours and pressure on players to perform that not everyone can deal with. The number of points lost from winning positions suggests that this is a nervous squad which knows it is writing new unwanted chapters in the club’s history every week.

The upcoming match with Verona has taken on huge significance that few could have ever imagined. Anything other than a victory would surely make the Viola’s task all but forlorn even before the midway point in the season has been reached. A win would just about put them back within touching distance of getting out of the drop zone but a draw or defeat would cut them adrift. Even Steve McQueen would throw in the towel on the prospects of any kind of Great Escape at that point.

A few smart acquisitions in January might make all the difference, but that still seems a long time away. This squad got itself into this tight spot, but with every passing week, it looks less and less capable of digging itself back out. The play is predictable, the transitions too slow, and the pressure too great for many to cope with. The storm clouds might yet clear away and strike somewhere else but, for Fiorentina fans everywhere, it might be worth investing in an umbrella and some good rainproof gear for the weeks and months ahead.