Pioggia Viola : AFC Fiorentina

A dominant pre season, with some crazy scorelines in there. It is a good thing that you didn't go abroad too much and preferred to stay mostly in Florence, as that will help Bellingham and Caqueret settle into the city surroundings and club

Very impressive and the ideal preparation.

2020-05-03 01:32#269563 Griffo : Thank you for sharing, he looks quality, I had him at Brescia in FM19 but he never set the world on fire

Spoiler Alert : He tricked me with that scoring streak he went on to finish the previous season, he's still a solid CAM but he didn't build on that. For the price I paid for him, and his bizarrely low salary demands, he's perfect for what I need in that spot.

Set up and ready for the big season ahead

A very good season last year with that monstrous points total. I think Montella is right a new stadium would be massive for the club to benefit from recent and continued success. Hopefully the board realize the opportunity that it could provide soon.

The harsh realities of the football economy do not care about the heart warming Cinderella story of Fiorentina’s first league title. Even with a slight increase in payroll the club is about to be hit by a freight train of spending, there’s just no way Fiorentina can afford to keep everyone. Luckily for Daniele Pradè, they already saw what kind of return they could get for some of their players last January, so there’s money to be made by shedding salary. The team needs to get younger in a rebuild and then Montella will have another short window to compete.

The sale of players turned out to be like blood in the water and sharks started to circle for players that weren’t for sale. Both keepers became a target of Premier League teams with Wolves (Bartłomiej Drągowski) and Leicetser (Alban Lafont) looking to carry them off for laughable sums. Manchester City came right back for Martin Terrier, the offseason tempered their interest but they still paid an obscene amount of money for the LW. Filip Jagiello had been dancing with transfer rumors all season, staying rather quiet, but when Barcelona started lodging actual bids he wanted to leave and Fiorentina were happy to turn a massive profit on a player they picked up for almost nothing. Some eye popping bids helped finish off the gutting of Fiorentina’s midfield with Captain Marco Benassi the saddest departure. Maxence Caqueret came at a steep price, but Montella had been scouting him for some time and felt like rolling the dice on a promising young player who was just cracking the Lyon roster was worth it. In the “Better Lucky Than Good” department Cardiff transfer listed Jude Bellingham for £9.5M and Fiorentina couldn’t open their wallet fast enough, being able to promise the teenager immediate playing time in a top league helped this move get done before the English giants circling him had time to react. With all the sales and purchases done Fiorentina were sitting on £266M in transfer funds, not enough for a new stadium but enough to keep the club in the black for a while.

The only real problem that bubbled up was Pedro demanding a new contract. Reports are that Pedro’s opening demand was £10.5M a year, making him far and away the club’s highest paid player. An attempt to get him to come down from that number resulted in an almost immediate breakdown in negotiations, he’s signed through 2025 so Montella has time but his time in Florence is likely coming to an end.



Senior / Major Transfers (Out)
Martin Terrier (LW, Manchester City) £65M
Filip Jagiello (CM, Barcelona) £52M
Evander (CAM, Shandong Luneng) £47.5M
Gaetano Castrovilli (CM, Borussia Dortmund) £44M
Marco Benassi (CM, Manchester United) £41.5M
Erick Pulgar (CM, Shakhtar Donetsk) £40M

Senior Transfers (In)
Maxence Caqueret (CM, Lyon) £21.5M
Jude Bellingham (CM, Cardiff) £9.5M

Final Transfer List (Impact Signings)
Roman Mexès (CAM, Lyon - France) £2.8M
Birahim Guèye (CM, CASE - Senegal) Free

A small list of youth prospects gets smaller when you consider that Montella views Mexès as a senior squad member. During their scouting of Lyon they identified the Lyon B team member as a potential bench player while Lyon were not ready to move him up. The team sees quite a bit of potential and for a £2.8M it won’t be all that bad if they miss on his evaluation.

That is ALOT! of movement out of the club, really interested to see how Bellingham does for you

Bellingham a great acquisition for that fee. Looking forward to seeing how he fares under Montella.

Smart investments. Losing Pedro full stop would be a massive shame. I'm quite interested in the two youth signings brought in. Both are very talented players and bound to be instrumental to the future.

Some massive sales there. It is now up to the new guys show they can fill the boots, and more, of the outgoings.

2020-05-09 08:32#270343 Eoin97 : Bellingham a great acquisition for that fee. Looking forward to seeing how he fares under Montella.

I know the AI isn't perfect, but when I get a bid for Martin Terrier at £65M* and have Cardiff (who bought Bellingham for like £6M) send out a call for £9.5M it makes me scratch my head.

*I'm a full season ahead, and City turned around and sold him for something like £20M. Makes no sense.

Dealing with the impending World Cup would be less about the first half and more about preparing the team for an absolute gauntlet afterwards. The team would have a few players in the tournament, they would clearly be tired afterwards, but the schedule in the second half would see Fiorentina playing two or three games a week almost constantly. The second squad would be key to making it through the rest of the season, the fact that it seems to be a poorly kept secret that the second squad will probably become the first squad next season is another reason for Vincenzo Montella to give them more time on the pitch.


GROUP E
Barcelona (Spain)
Fiorentina (Italy)
Zenit (Russian)
1.FSV Mainz 05 (Germany)

A very difficult group to win, but a decent group to advance from. Right out of the gate Barcelona was the heavy favorite to win the group, they are also one of the teams favored to win the tournament. I Viola opens as a slight favorite to get out of the group, but away games in Russia and Germany aren’t going to be all that easy. Fiorentina got off fairly easy compared to the other Italian teams that qualified. Juventus (Real Madrid, PAOK, Fenerbahçe), Lazio (Liverpool, Real Sociedad, Shakhtar Donetsk), and Milan (Manchester City, Porto, Sevilla) all have a little more to worry about.




Maybe last year was a passing of the torch, or maybe Maurizio Sarri has been caught out, but these rivals appear to be heading in very different directions. It may be a little harsh to say that Juventus being in 5th at this point in the season is an indication of decay, only (6) games have been played, but ever since Montella arrived this rivalry has moved closer and closer to being a one-sided affair. It isn’t helping that Juventus started the season poorly, a 1-0 loss to Lazio was followed by two 0-0 draws (Milan and Sassuolo), a visit from a rising Fiorentina wasn’t going to be welcomed.

Sarri opened the game with a 4-3-1-2, a midfield diamond that has given Fiorentina issues in the past, but today the striker pairing of Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala were practically invisible. Things didn’t look great for the hosts, and I Viola finally broke through at 23’ on a killer shot from Jude Bellingham. Catching Juventus on the counter attack a quick series of passes had Juventus backing up quickly with their back line setting up level with the penalty spot. Their midfield was slow to get back, leaving a wide swath of the field between the back line and the top of the arc for Bellingham to shoot from. It was hard for Juventus to point fingers because nobody was around Bellingham to point at. Pelayo Morilla made it 2-0 just after halftime, and it seemed that the rout was on as Sarri began to try different formations. He changed their formation again at 60’ as Aaron Ramsey came off, moving Dybala into the midfield, but it only made them look more confused. They were well beaten by 85’ when Maxence Caqueret duplicated Bellingham’s goal, this time the ball came from the right side, but this time Juventus’ back line just looked like they wanted to go home.

To be blunt, Juventus looked like a mid table team in this game. Fiorentina dominated every aspect of the game and poured a little salt on the wound by extending their Serie A win streak to (11) games. The win would be an important morale boost with a trip to Barcelona in the Champions League coming up in just a few days.



A trip to Camp Nou came with a bit of pregame drama thanks to the media. After being Juventus a few days earlier, and repeating in Serie A more realistic than winning the Champions League, Montella made the controversial decision to rest the first team and let the second squad play in a hostile environment. After beating Main 05 (3-1) and Zenit (3-0) fairly easily, it looked like Fiorentina could handle losing to Barcelona and still make it out of the group. Few gave Fiorentina much of a chance even assuming the first squad, so the drama seemed a little manufactured.

“I am offended by that question, and it insults my players” snapped Montella when asked about giving up against Barcelona “all of our players are capable of beating anyone. I wouldn’t put out a team to lose, and they wouldn’t go out to lose.”

The return of Franck Blanc from injury didn’t help calm anyone’s nerves, throwing him into the deep end of the pool didn’t look good but Montella wouldn’t play him if he wasn’t confident of his fitness. Barcelona’s manager, Jesse Marsch, was probably feeling really good about facing Fiorentina’s second squad. The former RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg manager, who faced a lot of criticism as the new manager of Barcelona, is under a ton of pressure to do well. This game wasn’t going to help his case, and it wasn’t just the final scoreline.

The problems started early and got worse over the course of the game, the primary driver of Barcelona’s misery was sloppiness with the ball. Barcelona were taking a more relaxed approach, perhaps feeling a little too comfortable at home, and Fiorentina’s aggressive press turned that into a train wreck for the Catalan club. The areas of trouble gradually moved further down the field until Barcelona were getting stuck in their own third, exchanging tiki-taka for panicked punts up the field that were easily collected by Fiorentina.

Things finally broke down for the hosts on a long free kick from Blanc, perfectly curled into the box, that Abdou Fall headed in near the far corner. Up until that moment it always seemed like Barcelona could just flip a switch, but going down 1-0 really hit the crowd and the atmosphere changed rapidly after that. The sloppiness that had Barcelona trying to work out of their third of the field finally blew up in their face at 46’ when a weakly headed ball, trying to clear a cross, was intercepted by Blanc as Antoine Griezmann lost focus. The ball went right back into the central defenders at the top of the box, but Jean-Clair Todibo and Samuel Umtiti literally collided in an attempt to collect the ball. The ball squirted out to an alert Degnand Wilfried Gnonto who was more than happy to put it past the helpless Marc-André ter Stegen. The humiliation was completed at 86’ when more absent minded defending let the ball bounce around in the box after a free kick, Nicolò Branzino was right there when the ball trickled out at the near post and essentially had an open net from inside the goal area to make it 3-0.

It’s almost hard to believe that both teams had the same number of shots on target, anyone watching could have sworn that Barcelona was vastly outplayed. This turned out to be an instance where one team just got all the breaks, Barcelona’s sloppy play just kept opening the door for Fiorentina. The return visit to Artemio Franchi might look very different with the Catalan side in danger of finishing 2nd in the group.


Whatever Montella is doing, it’s working. His entire coaching staff must be doing a great job as well, you don’t extend a league unbeaten streak (33) games just on the strength of the manager. The team cruised through August, treating the opening of Serie A like a series of friendlies, and headed into the opening of the Champions League ready to punch above their weight. Mainz 05 and Zenit went down fairly easily, 3-1 and 3-0, but the real surprise came when Fiorentina followed up their 3-0 win over Juventus with a 3-0 win over Barcelona using the second squad. The Catalans would get revenge, in a sense, with a 0-0 draw at Artemio Franchi but the damage had been done and the group was Fiorentina’s to lose. Mainz 05 (5-1) and Zenit (4-0) were less of a problem on the second go around and to everyone’s surprise Fiorentina would win the group easily.

Everyone was surprised that Fiorentina had handled the Champions League so well, but looking back at the first half as a whole and Fiorentina should have been taken more seriously. I Viola didn’t lose a single game and only allowed (4) opponents to score. The trickiest game turned out to be a 2-2 draw with Udinese, the only time Fiorentina allowed more than a single goal, it was starting to look like Montella had discovered the secret of strangling opponents while scoring freely.

The World Cup in Qatar, one of the weirdest on record, would wipe out almost all of November and December. The soaring heat, despite moving the tournament to the winter, was only more surprising than Germany winning 3-2 over Switzerland in the final. The long break was good, getting some rest before an unbelievably brutal second half would be extremely valuable. Turns out boy La Liga titans had trouble in their groups, Fiorentina’s reward for winning theirs would be a draw against Real Madrid in the next round.




Fiorentina would dominate the league Team Of The Year like they dominated their opponents. While the squad struggles to win recognition beyond Serie A, they have no trouble taking home almost all of the domestic awards. Some time at Real Madrid really raised Hélder Lavado’s profile as he would take the European Golden Boy and FIFA Best U-21 player awards, quite an accomplishment for someone expected to be a world class player in no time.

Bartłomiej Drągowski would have something to brag about after beating out Alisson and Marc-André ter Stegen for FIFA’s GK of the year award, and Florentino Firenze would be able to lord his award over Roberto Cannata and Federico Marino as they finished 2nd and 3rd for Serie A Defender Of The Year.



Serie A Manager Of The Year : Vincenzo Montella
European Golden Boy : Hélder Lavado - (29) Goals / (7) Assists
FIFA Best U-21 : Hélder Lavado
FIFA Best GK : Bartłomiej Drągowski
USA Player Of The Year : Smoke Monday
Serie A PoY : Florentino Firenze
Serie A Defender : Florentino Firenze
Serie A Midfielder : Filip Jagiello


The secret of Fiorentina’s success is now obvious; don’t get injured! I Viola enjoyed an obviously unsustainable run of good health with very few serious injuries during the 1st half. Only (4) players suffered injuries that held them out for more than a week, and only one came outside of the World Cup break. Smoke Monday damaged his foot in training, costing him (2) weeks, in late August but Montella was able to deal with it.

Wow. Not only smashing Juventus but then Barcelona. Astonishing.

Brilliant work! Loving the new rise of a club in Serie A other than the usual top teams. Keep it up!

That is an impressive effort in the Champions League, wow!