Shades of Deep Purple: Part 28

IT’S CHRISTMAAAAAAAAAAS! Well… almost.

Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year when everybody writes their festive wishes to Father Christmas – or just order their gifts off Amazon, depending on their age. That’s true both in real life and in this story, where the faint sound of sleigh bells ushers us into December 2020.

Have we been nice enough to get what we really want – a Europa League knockout place, and a strong chance of finishing in Serie A’s top four? Or will naughtiness be our downfall, meaning we end up with nothing bar yet another novelty jumper? We’ll find out soon enough, but first, there’s a very early Christmas present that needs unwrapping…

A NEW SIGNING

Yes, it might be December, but we’ve managed to sneak a player in before the winter transfer window opens. Back in the summer, Robert Goualy agreed to join us on a free transfer upon the expiration of his contract with ASEC Mimosas, who’ve produced many great Ivorian players over the years.

Goualy is an 18-year-old box-to-box midfielder with impressive technique and incredible stamina, not to mention a dab hand at free-kicks. He’s still a bit raw to be playing top-flight football, so he might benefit from going out on loan in January.

FIORENTINA vs ATALANTA (Serie A, Match 16)

Our first match in December was against an Atalanta side who sat in 10th position, having lost just once in the previous three months. They also had one of our great nemeses of recent times in the Colombian striker Duván Zapata, who always seemed to get goal-hungry as soon as he saw the colour purple.

Zapata could have added yet another goal to his collection in the seventh minute, but his header from a left-wing cross by Alejandro Gómez just missed the post. That came during an anxious opening quarter-hour in which both our full-backs – Cristiano Biraghi and Almamy Touré – were cautioned.

It took us a while to settle into the game, with midfielder Marco Benassi of all people looking most likely to give us the lead. In the end, though, it would be a more familiar scorer who made the breakthrough on 36 minutes. Valentin Eysseric showed great anticipation to intercept a throw from Atalanta wing-back Timothy Castagne. He then dribbled past centre-half José Luis Palomino before providing a clinical finish.

Shortly after Eysseric got his seventh goal of the season, our other French attacker got just his second. Willem Geubbels might have blown hot-and-cold during his loan spell, but the teenager showed a great predatory instinct to bury Biraghi’s low cross into Marco Sportiello’s net. With three minutes to play in the first half, we were looking pretty good at 2-0 up.

It wasn’t game over, though, as La Dea struck back a third of the way through the second half. This time, our substitute right-back Kevin Diks was guilty of giving the ball away sloppily from a throw-in. Moments later, Zapata exchanged passes with Gómez before getting behind our defence and chipping a despairing Alban Lafont.

It now looked like this fixture would be as stressful as it was last season, when we made a couple of defensive errors before going on to win 6-2. Thankfully, there would be no repeat of that. Lafont saved a couple of late equalising attempts from Argentine aces Gómez and Palomino before we dug deep to secure a 2-1 victory.

Despite the win, we couldn’t make up any ground on leaders Inter, as they beat Claudio Ranieri’s SPAL 2-1 after a last-minute winner from Sime Vrsaljko (I know how you feel, Claudio). Speaking of another ex-Chelsea manager, Antonio Conte was grim-faced after Juventus succumbed to a 2-0 loss at dark horses Pescara. The Bianconeri dropped to 6th behind Pescara, Milan… and Carlo Ancelotti’s Napoli, who scraped past Genoa.

MALMÖ vs FIORENTINA (Europa League, Group G – Match 6)

We touched down in Sweden knowing exactly what we had to do to secure a place in the Europa League’s Round of 32. A draw at the Stadion would be enough for us, while Malmö needed a win on home soil to join Dynamo Kyiv in the next round instead. We won our previous encounter 5-0, so I reckoned we would be fine, just as long as none of our players did anything stupid…

…like, get sent off after six minutes. Centre-half Kurt Zouma was already walking a tightrope when he received a booking for bringing down Malmö’s target man Carlos Strandberg in the third minute. To collect another soon afterwards for another clumsy foul on the same player was just pure idiocy. We were already down to 10, and I had to sacrifice an attacker (Patrick Roberts) to bring on a backup central defender (Vítor Hugo).

The hosts started to take control with their extra man, though it wasn’t until the 33rd minute that they made that advantage count. Midfield playmaker Fouad Bachirou – who used to play for Morton in the Scottish First Division – floated a corner into our area for defender Oscar Lewicki to head home.

Vítor could have levelled in the 39th minute, but the Brazilian could only nod Federico Chiesa’s corner into Johan Dahlin’s hands. Then, just before half-time, another Bachirou corner at our end led to things going from bad to worse.

Benassi was actually having a decent game in midfield until he was accused of shoving Strandberg as Bachirou’s delivery came in. Referee Martin Atkinson pointed to the spot, from which local favourite Guillermo Molins calmly drilled Malmö into a 2-0 lead. What was it I wrote about them in Part 24, Christopher?

“If any team had the potential to consign us to a humiliating early exit, it would probably be them.”

That’s the one. If we were to avoid going out of Europe before the United Kingdom did, we needed to be more aggressive in the second half – much more aggressive. Unfortunately, Chiesa and Vítor Hugo got the wrong end of the stick, and got their names into Atkinson’s notebook.

The early stages of the period saw chances galore for the Viola. Pietro Pellegri had an excellent shot in the 52nd minute clawed behind by Dahlin, while the home goalie also denied Chiesa five minutes later. Neither of our star attackers found their golden touches again.

‘Di Blåe’ were on a high having recently won the Allsvenskan title yet again, and they would soon counter our gung-ho approach to deliver another stunning result. In the 67th minute, Strandberg selflessly laid the ball off to Molins, who slotted in his second and Malmö’s third goal. Molins returned the favour in the 73rd minute, floating in the cross that gave Strandberg the goal he richly deserved.

But our misery didn’t stop at 4-0, oh no. Just for good measure, we gave away another penalty in the closing stages after centre-half Alessandro Bastoni went in hard on Molins. The 32-year-old Sweden international then beat Lafont from 12 yards for a second time to secure his hat-trick – and Malmö a revenge 5-0 win! In the biggest match of our season, everything that could’ve gone wrong had gone wrong.

“Saga Norén, Länskrim Malmö?”

“Yeah, I’d like to report a mass murder. 14 Italians, in the away dressing room at the Stadion. I saw a large English guy leave the room with blood on his shirt afterwards.”

I have been playing Championship/Football Manager for almost two decades now, and that has to be the biggest capitulation I’ve ever seen. We should have won at Slavia Prague. We should have beaten Dynamo Kyiv from 3-1 up. We only needed a draw in Malmö. We had THREE opportunities to secure a place in the knockouts, yet we still ballsed it up.

Back in FM13, my Romford team led Bromley 2-0 after the first leg of the Conference South Play-Off Semi Finals. We went 5-1 down at half-time in the second leg, before ultimately losing 7-3 and going out 7-5 on aggregate. At least those Boro boys showed more guts and discipline than these Viola flowers did in Sweden!

So, yeah… that’s our Europa League dream in ashes. I never really liked that competition anyway. The Cup Winners’ Cup was where it was at.

Fiorentina’s players paid a heavy price for their collapse. Touré was docked a week’s wages for his appalling performance, while everyone else coughed up to repay the fans’ tickets and travel expenses. It was the least our tifosi deserved.

Oh yeah, and isn’t it funny that Zouma was the guy who spoke publicly about our generosity. Kurt Zouma – the guy whose red card after SIX MINUTES directly led to Fiorentina’s heaviest defeat since 2004! You can bugger off to the Primavera for the next few weeks, Kurt, so you can think about what you’ve done! YOU MAKE ME SICK!!

[Clears throat] Sorry, where was I?

INTERNAZIONALE vs FIORENTINA (Serie A, Match 17)

After being thrashed by Malmö, who did we not want to face in our next match? How about the runaway Serie A leaders, the division’s top scorers, the team that dominated the average rating charts? At the San Siro as well. Piece of cake.

To send out a statement to those who had underperformed in that previous match, I made eight changes to the starting line-up. The only three players to keep their starting places were Lafont and midfielders Benassi and Lucas Tousart.

You can probably guess what conceding five goals in Sweden had done to Lafont’s psyche. After Fiorentina destroyer Tousart tripped his Inter counterpart Radja Nainggolan in the eighth minute, Jonathan Vieira fired a direct free-kick towards goal. A shaky Lafont could only parry the ball on to the onrushing Nainggolan, who cut in an early opener for the hosts.

As Inter threatened to overwhelm us, we resorted to properly cautious, counter-attacking football. Our first real opportunity to hit the Nerazzurri on the break came after 20 minutes. Geubbels pounced on a back-pass from Sime Vrsaljko to fellow defender Stefan de Vrij, leaving him one-on-one with goalkeeper Keylor Navas. The initial shot was parried by Navas, and the follow-up skied hopelessly over the bar.

Geubbels’ confidence took another knock in the 26th minute, when Navas denied him again after he had run onto an excellent weighted pass from Eysseric. Our young striker would try his luck twice more early in the second half, but one shot was charged down by de Vrij and the other was caught by Geubbels. This was clearly not going to be Willem’s night.

While an equaliser failed to materialise, we battled bravely to keep the scoreline down. Inter could only get six out of their 25 shots on target, with a string of fine saves from Lafont and some determined blocks by his defenders thwarting the Nerazzurri. The closest they came to doubling their lead was perhaps when Nainggolan hit the bar four minutes into the second half.

In the end, a 1-0 defeat was perhaps the best result we could hope for. While our hosts celebrated another victory on their road to another scudetto, I commended my boys for a more spirited display this time around.

Inter’s lead was now at a whopping nine points. Napoli went level with us after ex-Chelsea and Newcastle winger Kenedy saved them a draw at Pescara. The latter were now within a point of us, and so too were Juventus, who triumphed 1-0 at Lazio.

FIORENTINA vs GENOA (Serie A, Match 18)

This was where we badly needed to get back to winning ways before a worrying run of form became a full-blown crisis. Genoa had taken just one victory from their last nine matches and were embroiled in another battle with the drop.

Though Genoa were more attacking than many lowly teams we’d faced this season, we had made a habit of failing to convert chances against sides of their calibre. That was certainly true in the first few minutes here. Tousart and Germán Pezzella each looped headers off target before Chiesa scooped an uninspiring 11th-minute free-kick high over the crossbar.

While Chiesa’s woes on the left flank didn’t look like abating, Domenico Berardi fared little better on the right. A couple of unconvincing shots failed to get near Grifone goalkeeper Ionut Radu, who was also unfazed by an attempted chip from Pellegri in the 56th minute.

We’d started playing more through-balls in the second half, and a minute after that missed opportunity, Pellegri got another. The young hotshot broke clear of his marker Ervin Zukanovic to reach Chiesa’s pass into space. After taking some time to compose himself, Pietro tucked away his first goal since October and finally put us in the ascendancy.

Genoa responded positively, with only Lafont’s quick reactions denying Portuguese playmaker Daniel Bragança an equaliser after 62 minutes. Three other visiting players would see their shots saved by our dependable number 1, who deserved almost as much credit for preserving our clean sheet as Touré. Nine days after getting a 5.3 match rating at Malmö, the Malian right-back scored an 8.6 and was voted ‘man of the match’.

While Pellegri would take the headlines for his match-winner, he arguably should’ve scored again from a stoppage-time counter-attack. Roberts’ excellent square ball was to no avail, as Pellegri’s point-blank shot cannoned off the bar. While that miss mattered little in terms of the result, it clearly illustrated Pietro’s alarming dip in form over recent weeks.

Inter’s title charge showed little sign of stopping when they beat Chievo 2-0 to stay nine points clear. Napoli kept the pressure on us in 2nd after Arkadiusz Milik’s late strike accounted for Lazio, and Pescara stayed in 4th following a hard-fought 2-1 win at SPAL. The Delfini would be our next opponents just before Christmas.

Juventus’ recent downturn in form continued as Ross Barkley secured a 1-0 away derby win for Torino, who overtook their rivals in the standings. Milan also slipped up, failing to beat relegation-battlers Verona on home soil.

PESCARA vs FIORENTINA (Serie A, Match 19)

Our last game before Christmas saw us attempt to put the brakes on Serie A’s surprise packages. Pescara had stormed into the top four, and another victory at the Adriatico would see Giuseppe Pillon’s charges overtake us and potentially even go 2nd.

One of the main men behind Pescara’s success was their rapid but inconsistent Nigerian striker Henry Onyekuru. The Everton loanee showed us just what he was capable of in the seventh minute, getting past our centre-backs to run onto wide midfielder Simone Padoin’s pass into the box. A clinical finish followed, and despite hints of a potential offside, the goal stood.

Annoyed at himself for failing to stop Onyekuru, Vítor Hugo set out to equalise two minutes later, but his header was saved by Vincenzo Fiorillo. The Delfini goalie then acrobatically tipped over a fierce strike from Nicolás Benedetti – making his first appearance in over a month – on 17 minutes. Geubbels did beat Fiorillo four minutes afterwards, but he could only nod Touré’s cross over the bar.

The rest of the first half saw plenty of missed shots at both ends, not to mention a flurry of yellow cards. Five players were booked before half-time, including three from Pescara… and one of them would claim an unwanted double in the 56th minute. Right-back Francesco Zampano’s barge on Eysseric earned him a red card and gave us over half an hour to equalise against 10 men.

We upped the tempo to try and take advantage of our situation, but Pescara’s defence simply would not yield. Fiorillo defied attempts from Benassi in the 66th minute and Geubbels in the 83rd, while left-back Arkadiusz Reca also did his bit with some fantastic saving tackles.

After 25 unsuccessful attempts at goal, we had to admit that we were beaten.

That meant Pescara improbably reached the halfway stage of the Serie A season in 2nd place. Napoli’s 2-2 draw with Torino knocked us down into 4th, while Milan closed their deficit on us to a single point by beating Palermo 2-0. Juventus’ nightmare continued when they were held at Bologna.

Oh yes, and Inter were 4-1 winners at home to Atalanta, which meant the Nerazzurri’s overall lead was now in double figures. Somebody give them the scudetto already…

LAZIO vs FIORENTINA (Serie A, Match 20)

Unusually, the second half of the league season began before – and not after – the winter break. That meant we spent our Boxing Day in Rome, where we looked to complete a double over Lazio – and a double at the Olimpico, where we’d already scalped Roma in October.

Lazio were having an appalling season, and manager Simone Inzaghi would surely come under question unless he snapped a four-game winless run quickly. A couple of early bookings for right-back Adam Marusic and playmaker Marek Hamsik – both for fouls on Eysseric – didn’t augur well from the hosts’ perspective.

Even so, the Biancocelesti had some excellent scoring opportunities in the first half. Lafont had to save attempts from centre-halves Thiago Silva and Francesco Acerbi, as well as midfielder Alessandro Murgia, who missed an absolute sitter in the 24th minute. After Hamsik lifted the ball over a high Viola defence, Murgia just had to drive the ball past Lafont, and he succeeded only in clearing the crossbar.

Fortune had favoured us there, but that had not been the case seven minutes earlier, when Chiesa swerved a shot against Thomas Strakosha’s right-hand post. This was not to be a return to form for the 23-year-old, who captained us in place of the rested Pezzella.

Eysseric would have better luck on the other flank in the second half. On 57 minutes, Jordan Veretout searched out his French compatriot on the corner of the Lazio box. Valentin then cut inside and struck a wicked curler that just missed the inside of the post on its way past a bewildered Strakosha!

The hosts’ attacking midfielder Luis Alberto then wasted a glorious opening in the 70th minute, powering Divock Origi’s incisive pass into Lafont’s hands. That miss would be punished in full eight minutes later. Pellegri moved out to the right wing and crossed into the area, where a poor interception from Lucas Leiva gave Eysseric a simple finish. Forget Boxing Day; this was Valentin’s Day!

Lazio’s misery appeared to have been completed in the 81st minute, when Vítor Hugo tried to claim a goal when he finished Bastoni’s flick-on from a Veretout corner. VAR ruled that Vítor was just offside, so the final score remained at 2-0 Fiorentina rather than 3-0. All that mattered to me, though, was that we’d beaten the Biancocelesti again!

We just about remain in Serie A’s top four going into the mid-season interval. Significantly, though, we hold a three-point lead on 5th-placed Torino (who edged a five-goal thriller with SPAL) and 6th-placed Juventus (who ended their barren run at Empoli). Milan fell to 7th after a surprise home defeat to Sampdoria.

Napoli’s 2-1 win at Bologna saw them nab 2nd position from Pescara, who only drew 1-1 with Chievo. As for the runaway leaders… Inter contrived to lose 1-0 at the last-placed team, finally giving Gian Piero Gasperini his first win with Palermo after SEVENTEEN attempts. Football (Manager) is a funny old game.

I’ll tell you what… I am quite glad to see the back of 2020. This has been a year full of missed opportunities, regret, and arguable underachievement. Hang on… I’m thinking about Nikola Kalinic in 2019, aren’t I?

January 2021 represents a chance for me to think again about how I can propel the Viola forward. Come back soon for all the developments in a make-or-break transfer window for me at Fiorentina.

“Forza viola!”