A new season is about to begin at Fiorentina. After some significant improvements in the transfer market, and some very positive results in pre-season, I feel like we’re ready to launch a strong – and sustained – push for those Champions League places.
Today’s post will include an updated squad and tactics report, as well as the opening three matches of our 2020/2021 Serie A season. The Europa League Group Stage draw is also due to take place, so we’ll soon find out who we’ll share our Thursday nights with for the foreseeable future.
SQUAD REPORT
Here’s a quick overview of our first-teamers and their star ratings. Now let’s have a look at each player, starting with our number 1 – and the new face of “Shades of Deep Purple”:
Alban Lafont remains our first-choice goalkeeper for a third season. The youngster has made rapid progress over the last 12 months – particularly with his distribution – and was the only Fiorentina player to be involved in Euro 2020. Lafont didn’t get off France’s bench during that tournament, though a first senior cap is surely on the horizon.
Francesco Bardi is Lafont’s new understudy, and a decent one at that. The 28-year-old former Frosinone man will warm the bench for the next couple of seasons, though Belgian teenager Elias Heylen – another summer signing – will be hot on his heels.
After intense speculation over his future, I’m delighted that captain Germán Pezzella is sticking around. The Argentine general is a powerful presence in the heart of our backline, and a rare mistake in the Coppa Italia Final notwithstanding, he was our most solid defender last season. I could honestly trust him with my life.
Though still ‘only’ 29, Pezzella is actually the second-oldest player at the club now. Vítor Hugo is about a month his senior, and the Brazilian’s experience is always useful to have, even if he is no longer a regular starter. Indeed, he has now been promoted to third-choice captain for the new campaign.
Kurt Zouma – the first of our three loanees – is expected to be Pezzella’s regular central defensive partner. The 25-year-old Frenchman is strong both physically and mentally, and he possesses exceptional pace for a defender. Though woefully underappreciated at Chelsea, I’m sure he’ll quickly become a popular man amongst the Viola tifosi.
Hopes are also high for 21-year-old Alessandro Bastoni following his €11million move from Inter. Though he’s still a bit raw and shy of experience, I’m expecting the aggressive stopper to flourish into a quality defender over the coming years.
Almamy Touré made slow but steady progress in a promising first season at Fiorentina. The Malian wing-back’s energy and crossing ability always give us an extra dimension when attacking from the right flank. Touré was another player who’d caught the attention of other clubs, but I warded off any potential bids by handing him a new five-year contract.
His deputy is Dutchman Kevin Diks, who played in half of our league matches last season but still put in some strong performances. Diks is quick on his feet and in his head, though an ankle ligament injury hampered his pre-season and might keep him out of the team for a little while longer.
First-choice left-back Cristiano Biraghi is also set to miss some early fixtures, having strained his thigh. Now in his fourth season at the Franchi, Biraghi is a very popular player amongst our fans, and I really like the energy and solidity he gives to this team.
While Biraghi recovers from his injury, 22-year-old David Hancko will be given a chance to show what he’s capable of. The smart Slovakian struggled at Salernitana during his loan spell last season, so he really needs to take his game up a notch sooner rather than later.
This could be a breakthrough season for 20-year-old Sandro Tonali (and his new face). Despite a few teething problems in his first few months at Fiorentina, Tonali came alive during a spirited but fruitless battle against relegation while on loan with Cagliari. The midfield playmaker must now live up to his “new Andrea Pirlo” tag, and he will get a few starts early this season to try and do so.
Christian Nørgaard is the team’s other natural deep-lying playmaker. He has excellent passing ability and is generally consistent, though he doesn’t like high-pressure situations. With that in mind, the 26-year-old Dane might be moved on next summer unless he truly excels.
Abdou Diakhaté also needs to step up after a frustrating year on loan at Empoli. That has greatly hampered the homegrown 21-year-old’s development, though I’m willing to give him more time to live up to his potential. Diakhaté’s versatility works in his favour, as I can effectively use him as either a regista or a box-to-box midfielder.
Fiorentina’s new midfield enforcer Lucas Tousart is the club’s most expensive signing since Mario Gómez was bought from Bayern München for €21million in 2013. Tousart has cost us an initial €15million from Lyon, though add-ons mean he will become our official record buy as soon as he makes his 50th appearance in Serie A.
Lucas is exceptionally hard-working and rarely shirks a tackle, and at 23, there’s still plenty of room for him to develop. Our potential answer to world champion N’Golo Kanté arrives in Italy as an Olympic champion, having helped France take the men’s football gold medals in Tokyo this summer.
Jordan Veretout is back in my good books, having spent part of last season sulking about not getting a move to Monaco. Having started that campaign as a mezzala, the 27-year-old French workhorse is now primarily used as a box-to-box midfielder. I really do think that we will soon see him at his very best.
Marco Benassi is arguably our most flexible middleman, as he possesses great tackling and passing abilities and has bags of stamina. That made his underwhelming performances last season even more staggering; in 44 appearances, he provided just one goal and one assist.
Our failure to finish in the top four last season has further frustrated Benassi, who has publicly stated he wants to leave Fiorentina for Champions League football. I refused to back down to Marco’s demands, and Tottenham’s reluctance to submit an offer means he must now play for his CL place rather than have it handed to him. That extra motivation might just be what he needs.
Nicolás Benedetti is another player who underperformed last season, though to be fair, it was his first in Italy. Having struggled to make his mark in his natural attacking midfield role, the creative Colombian is being retrained as a box-to-box player.
Federico Chiesa is arguably the best right-winger currently operating in Serie A, and indisputably our top dog. His impressive return of 16 goals and 15 assists last season might just be the tip of the iceberg. With supreme dribbling ability and explosive pace, even leading full-backs struggle to silence Chiesa.
If we’re to keep Federico for the long haul, qualifying for the Champions League this season is an absolute must. There’ll be plenty of takers if we fall short, but if we do take that next step, then perhaps our vice-skipper will reaffirm his commitment to the Viola cause by accepting the full-time captaincy.
I questioned Valentin Eysseric‘s long-term future in last season’s squad report, but he only went and proved me wrong by scoring 15 goals. Eysseric had never come close to hitting those heights previously, though it remains to be seen whether the pacey inside-forward can keep that form up. The first few games might give us a good idea.
We also have two excellent left-footers who can be used out wide. Domenico Berardi is our main man when it comes to penalties (and parties), though he has underperformed too often for a player of his abilities. I’m expecting a lot better from the 26-year-old Italian this time around, not least because he now has serious competition.
Patrick Roberts is the latest Englishman to arrive in Serie A, and the 23-year-old has already shown flickers of brilliance in pre-season. The former Manchester City forward might be our shortest player at 5ft 6in, but his flair, agility and technique more than make up for that.
A couple of prodigiously-talented Monaco loanees will head our attack. Pietro Pellegri has come back for a second season at the Franchi after endearing himself to the Viola faithful with 17 goals. Though Pellegri will remain a teenager until mid-March, a bulked-up frame and a cool head under pressure (just forget the Coppa Italia Final) greatly belie his tender years. Expect another goal glut.
Les Monégasques have also lent us another 2001 baby in Willem Geubbels, who has already won a gold medal and a Golden Boot at the Olympics, not to mention two senior France caps. This will be the explosive wonderkid’s first experience of playing regularly in European competition. With Pellegri holding down the centre-forward role, Geubbels will likely see most action out wide, where his pace can really be exploited.
Lastly, we have Spanish poacher Santi Mina. The January signing from Valencia was underwhelming in his first few months at Fiorentina, though an upturn in form in pre-season looks promising. Even so, the 24-year-old will likely have to bide his time – or maybe even adapt to a midfield role – before playing regularly again.
TACTICS UPDATE
I will again be using ‘Fullerball’ as my primary tactic, especially at home. With a narrow attacking shape and a higher defensive line, but a lower line of engagement, we should be able to suffocate the opposition team and give them little space.
Team instructions are subject to change based on how the opposition line up. For instance, I won’t instruct my attackers to ‘Prevent Short GK Distribution’ if the other team has three centre-halves and doesn’t play from the back.
Then there’s my ‘Fullerball Refined’ alternative. This is more for when we play away from home or are wary of any particularly quick attackers. Our defence sits deeper in this system than in the primary one, though we will look to counter-press as well as counter-attack. In addition, the ball-winner and playmaker essentially swap positions and duties, moving the latter a bit closer to our inside-forwards.
The 4-2-3-1 is basically our Plan C now – something to switch to if all else fails. One of the inside-forwards is replaced with a winger (usually on the right flank), and a second striker accompanies our frontman. Benedetti, Roberts and Eysseric would be the main candidates for that ‘role in the hole’.
FIORENTINA vs LAZIO (Serie A, Match 1)
We kicked off this season with a reversal of last year’s opener, though I hoped the result wouldn’t be reversed when we hosted Lazio at the Franchi. The Biancocelesti had recently spent €37.5million on Real Madrid forward Borja Mayoral, while also recruiting a couple of old heads in Marek Hamsik and Thiago Silva.
It was Silva who had the first attempt goal after four minutes, heading over a troublesome corner delivery from Luis Alberto. Three minutes later, the 35-year-old Brazilian centre-half was booked for a clumsy challenge on Geubbels. That wouldn’t be the last time Willem caused him and the Lazio defence problems.
In the 28th minute, shortly after Thiago hit our bar with another header, we struck the visitors on the break. Touré played a lovely long ball down the line for Geubbels, whose centre across the box was perfectly weighted for the onrushing Eysseric to give us first blood!
Eysseric benefitted from the creativity of another French compatriot three minutes from half-time. As Veretout pumped the ball up 40 yards into the box, Eysseric snuck behind Lazio’s unwitting right-back Adam Marusic. The subsequent half-volley was beautifully volleyed home from a tight angle, and we went into the break leading 2-0.
The Viola had shown little fear against a team that arguably look stronger than ours on paper, and we could well have gone further ahead. Berardi was a tad unlucky not to find the net, while Eysseric missed a chance for a famous hat-trick midway through the second half.
Then, on 74 minutes, the Biancocelesti showed signs of life. Ex-Napoli playmaker Hamsik immediately endeared himself to another group of cyan-clad supporters with an incisive ball through our defence to Simone Palombi. The substitute striker took advantage of some hesitancy on our part to put the result back in doubt.
Fortunately, that was as far as Lazio’s fightback went. Though substitute Mina and Eysseric were wasteful in their efforts to put the game to bed, the latter’s first-half brace would be decisive. We had inflicted more opening-day misery on Lazio.
Most of the other big teams also kicked off with wins. Antonio Conte began his second stint as Juventus boss by scraping past Empoli 1-0, while Roma also edged out Sassuolo by a single goal. There were a couple of 2-1 victories for Milan (at Sampdoria) and Napoli (away to Bologna).
The big surprise came at the San Siro, where champions Inter somehow fell 3-1 to Serie B play-off winners Palermo. That result was even more stunning because the Rosanero’s coach Giuseppe Iachini had walked out on them just hours before kick-off to take charge of AEK Athens!
TORINO vs FIORENTINA (Serie A, Match 2)
A week later, we played our first away match of the season at Torino, whom we had beaten to 6th place last time out. We might have had a good recent record against Il Toro, but they were defensively rock-solid and would take some shifting.
Walter Mazzarri’s men did a good job of withstanding our early attacks. Veteran goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu caught an early header from Eysseric and then watched a hopeful strike from our full debutant Lucas Tousart fly over his crossbar.
Though Lucas Biglia sent a half-volley high in the 17th minute, Torino’s new midfield general would make a bigger impact three minutes later. The former Lazio and Milan playmaker played an excellent first-time ball into our box to Iago Falqué, who lashed in a shot that was too quick for Lafont. Some of our defenders called offside, but VAR ruled otherwise.
Pellegri’s first game back in a Viola jersey soon became a nightmare, as a couple of equalising attempts failed to come off. The teenager fared so badly in the first period that I contemplated subbing him off at half-time. Instead, I decided to sacrifice Eysseric and Tousart – the latter of whom had been booked for an injury-time foul on Torino’s Ross Barkley.
The addition of Roberts gave our attack a bit more life, though we still struggled to put away our chances. The same was true of Torino until the 69th minute, when Veretout committed a costly foul on Biglia. We had no end of problems against deep free-kicks last season, and those issues reared their heads again when Falqué broke clear to stab wing-back Riza Durmisi’s lofted delivery in at the far post.
Ex-Tottenham flop Falqué’s second goal was the winning one. Pellegri did convert a consolation penalty in the 86th minute after Benedetti’s corner was blocked by the outstretched hand of home defender Sebastiano Luperto. Alas, we’d left it too late to make a full recovery, and had it not been for a couple of late Lafont saves, either Falqué or Barkley could have added to our agony.
While Juventus had a slip-up of their own in drawing at Sassuolo, it was business as usual elsewhere. Milan, Napoli and Roma all tasted their second victories, Inter bounced back with a 3-0 win at Genoa, and Lazio put two goals past Chievo without reply.
EUROPA LEAGUE DRAW
Despite reaching the Europa League Quarter Finals last season, we were only amongst the second seeds for this year’s Group Stage draw. Despite that, we still found ourselves in a rather favourable group.
Group G’s top seeds were Dynamo Kyiv – the traditional powerhouses of Ukrainian football. They’d finished 2nd in their league for the last four seasons and had plenty of capable players, so I wouldn’t relish our opening-round visit to the Olimpiyskiy in mid-September. A win there, though, would put us in a fantastic position.
Despite being third seeds, Czech champions Slavia Prague were perhaps the weakest team in the pool. Looking through their squad, I couldn’t find anyone that I thought would cause us too many problems (in before their left-back scores a late winner at the Franchi to make me look like a right mug).
Malmö, though, were not a side I could write off easily. They’d been crowned Swedish champions in five of the past seven years and had developed some fine talents in the past, including a certain Zlatan Ibrahimovic. If any team had the potential to consign us to a humiliating early exit, it would probably be them.
All told, I was very happy with that draw and felt that we had it in us to win the group. But that was for another time, because now we had to finish August off with one more league game…
FIORENTINA vs BOLOGNA (Serie A, Match 3)
Biraghi made a welcome return to action when we hosted Bologna, though our preparations for that match had been hampered by a couple more injuries. Diks’ first competitive outing this season was delayed by a knee injury, while an abdominal strain would put Berardi on the sidelines for at least a couple of weeks.
Bologna finished a dismal 16th last season, but they were hoping for better fortunes under new manager Vladimir Petkovic, who replaced Filippo Inzaghi in April. The Croatian’s first full campaign had begun unconvincingly, with an admiral 2-1 loss at Napoli being followed by a 1-1 home draw against SPAL.
The Rossoblu sent us a warning shot in the second minute, when a long-ranger from midfielder Andrea Poli made Lafont sweat. Keeping goal at the other end was Lukasz Skorupski, who denied Bastoni a dream goal on the young defender’s Viola debut four minutes later.
We would enjoy several shots over the course of the first half. While Touré, Veretout and Pellegri were all unlucky not to get on the scoresheet, Geubbels was looking a little overawed and couldn’t keep his attempts on target. The French starlet’s struggles continued until the midway point of the second period, when I replaced him with his rather more experienced compatriot Eysseric.
Though we continued to outplay Bologna on the statistics (e.g. registering over 20 shots on goal compared to their four), we looked woefully short on incisiveness. A goalless draw looked very likely until the 89th minute, when an excellent corner move finally unravelled Bologna. Veretout’s near-post delivery to Bastoni was flicked on to the back stick, where our other centre-half Zouma broke the deadlock.
Our French legion then applied the coup de grâce in stoppage time. Eysseric’s low centre was half-volleyed into the net from close range by Veretout, who secured us a hard-fought 2-0 win. I don’t know what it is about the Rossoblu, but we never have it easy against them, do we?
Napoli’s 2-0 win over Sassuolo and Milan’s excellent 3-1 victory at Roma meant that they retained perfect records after three games. Also on nine points were – incredibly – managerless Palermo, whose great start continued with a couple of victories against the two Genoese clubs. Juventus were just behind them after beating Verona 2-0 for a third straight clean sheet.
So it’s 5th place for Fiorentina after three games. From what I’ve seen so far, it looks like we’re heading for a fine season. Let’s see how optimistic I am at the end of September…
“Forza viola!”
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