We all know Fabio Grosso, World Cup winner et cetera. He’ll be at the center of every shot of the sidelines this year, whether that’s sitting stoically on the bench, screaming at the referees, or consulting with his anonymous minions. Those anonymous minions will play a huge part in Fiorentina’s success this year so let’s go ahead and put some names to the faces.
Assistant coach Raffaele Longo
A journeyman midfielder in his playing days, he spent the 2002-2003 season with Florentia Viola before hanging up his boots in 2010 and
working at Brescia, Bari, and Padova before linking up with Grosso at Lyon and taking over as the mister’s top lieutenant in 2023, following him to Sassuolo and then Florence. He’s got experience filling in as the head coach and given Grosso’s preseason antics, I don’t doubt that we’ll see Longo running the show at some point this year.
Fun fact: He isn’t the Raffaele Longo who’s a piano-focused music theory professor in Brussels.
Staff coordinator Stefano Raponi
A former goalkeeper who was mostly a backup in the lower leagues, he’s worked more as a technical coach than a goalkeeping one. He originally linked up with Grosso at Hellas Verona in 2018 and spent a couple games with him at Brescia as well. He was at Dolomiti in Serie C last year as a technical coach. I won’t pretend to know what a staff coordinator’s duties are in this circumstance but per his LinkedIn, “Calcio is a living ecosystem: every player brings a living intelligence that must be cultivated and integrated with that of the others, not standardized.” I assume his role is less hands-on and more about methodological oversight but I really don’t know.
Fun fact: Perhaps the most manicured facial hair we’ve seen in Florence since the heady days of Cristiano Lupatelli. What is it with goalies of a certain generation?
Technical collaborator Damià Abella
The ex-Barcelona defender retired at 34 a decade and immediately dove into coaching. He’s worked at boyhood club Figueres, Watford, and West Brom while learning under coaches as varied as Claudio Ranieri, Roy Hodgson, Tony Mowbray, and Carlos Corberán. His first language is Catalan but I assume he speaks Spanish and English fluently as well, as you’d expect from a cultured guy whose biggest thrill since moving to Florence is seeing a Mark Rothko exhibit and who got a university degree while he was still playing.
Fun fact: He’s got a big sweet idiot dog named Tattoo.
Athletic trainer Francesco Vaccariello
A member of every Grosso staff since the mister rocked up at Frosinone in 2021, he also worked with Raponi at Foligno back in the day. More importantly, he spent nearly a decade at Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta so yeah, he knows what he’s doing. He never made it as a pro and dove into coaching early on; he’s also got experience outside calcio as a physical performance entrepreneur on the side.
Fun fact: He posted on Instagram about the deterioration of press freedom in Italy and why that’s a serious threat to everyone’s freedom, so yeah, Fiorentina’s the uh perfect move, I guess.
Strength trainer Vittorio Carello
He’s been with Grosso since Frosinone as well, starting when he was just 24. He’s got a small online presence (just one photo I can find) but seems willing to incorporate more data into his work, which is a common theme among these guys and indicates a leap into the future, or at least present.
Fun fact: Can’t find any. Dude’s a cipher.
Strength and conditioning coach Giuseppe Mazza
He earned a promotion from the Primavera last year and has hung onto his spot, making him one of two holdovers from the previous regime. He’s got a doctorate in Sport Science and must be nails at his job if Fabio Paratici’s willing to sign off on keeping someone associated with the previous regime; not a lot of 36-year-olds get to be Prof, either. Also might be the handsomest guy on this list.
Fun fact: There are a lot of people named Giuseppe Mazza, including a lower- eague defender, the founder and CEO of Engitix (“a privately owned tissue engineering company”), an award-winning communications director, a painter, a sculptor, and a composer/organist. I don’t think our guy’s a vampire with multiple careers. I don’t think so.
Set piece coach Giuseppe Foti
Just 33, this is his first coaching job after cutting his teeth as a match analyst at hometown club Hellas Verona and then joining Grosso at Sassuolo last year. He’s a basketball fan, which fits for a set piece coach as play-calling and setting picks on defenders are features common to both. My guess is that he’ll watch from the press box most of the time to take advantage of his background in analysis and to get a better picture of his specific focus but he could be on the touchline as well, although he’s done a good job of keeping recognizable photos of himself off the internet so he’ll be a touch hard to recognize.
Fun fact: Can’t figure out what the connection is but I think he might have some Russian heritage, giving Fiorentina a second consecutive year of Russian adjacency after Aleksandr Nizelik.
Head goalkeeper coach Claudio Filippi
The 61-year-old is one of Italy’s most decorated goalkeeping coaches, having trained Alex Manninger, Stefano Sorrentino, Gianluigi Buffon, Wojciech Szczęsny, and most recently Mike Maignan. He spent 15 seasons at Juve (where he worked with Grosso) but, even worse, did a year-long stint at Siena. Nevertheless, he’s the biggest name on this list and a huge addition to the squad. He’s already drawn positive reviews from David de Gea and will probably be one of the most important voices behind the scenes. I assume that he’ll be key to the club’s post-DdG plans as well.
Fun fact: You know those shields that you see goalies training with? The ones a coach uses to deflect a ball to improve reactions and starting position? Yeah, that’s called the Filippi shield. He invented it.
Assistant goalkeeper coach Stefano Baroncini
The 39-year-old worked at youth level with Grosso at Juve and has a good relationship with Filippi from those years too. He also worked with the women’s side for 3 years before linking up with Italy’s youth teams, where his boss was Manuel Pasqual last year with the U16s.
Fun fact: He literally wrote the book about scouting goalkeepers.
Head match analyst Simone Contran
Best known as Roberto Mancini’s chief match analyst since 2018—including during that magical Euros run with Italy—he’ll also fill in as a technical coach during training but will probably be up in the box during games. He earned his Pro license a couple years ago with a thesis titled Positional Fluidity, which bodes well for a squad full of versatile players.
Fun fact: He’s been to every continent except Antarctica.
Match analyst Mauro Carretta
This is his 6th season with Grosso so he’s part of the core group. Fiorentina’s website lists him as the assistant match analyst but he’ll be involved in training as well. He’s got a master’s degree in finance as well so my guess is that he’ll do a lot of the statistical work, which probably means he’ll be up in the box rather than on the sidelines. He’s also linked his Transfermarkt profile on his Instagram page, which I find sort of charming.
Fun fact: Born in Onigo, the same village as a well-known mid-2oth century Italian writer named Giovanni Commisso. Am I stretching? Yes. Yes I am.
Head data analyst Vanni di Febo
He’s got a PhD in computer science and got his start in calcio doing project management for machine learning before picking up a job at a sports video editing company that launched him into soccer analysis. He’s kept a foot in academia, too, spending time working as a CS professor and a research fellow. This is his first official job at a club, although he’s worked for both the Italian and English national teams. He’s also been pretty clear that data models are a tool and that the coach’s opinion is the most important thing for a team, which is obvious but always good to hear explicitly.
Fun fact: He’s the only bearded baldy on staff this year and until Fiorentina hired him last week, I was worried the streak was going to end.
Drone operator Andrea Tordi
The owner of the funniest job title this year, the 26-year-old is the other returning staffer from last year’s group along with Mazza. Before that, he worked for the FIGC, focusing on the lower leagues while he got his master’s degree in kinesiology. He’s been coaching since his college days, starting with his university team’s women’s futsal side before several years with a Roman youth academy. He broke in with Fiorentina as the drone-operating intern under Raffaele Palladino and has stuck around doing match analysis and various other tasks.
Fun fact: He was born on 31 December 1999. A Y2K baby growing up to become a professional drone-and-data guy is perfect.
