The October international break is usually a frustration for Fiorentina fans but this one’s arrival means that we don’t have to watch this woeful team, so its arrival has been a balm to the scorched Viola
soul. It was also the earliest that the club could have reasonably parted ways with its embattled upper management after its worst start in terms of wins and losses since 1977. As expected, though, any pressure the brass feels is coming from the press and the supporters because the hermetically-sealed hierarchy within the organization exists still fully backs its own.
Fiorentina owner Rocco Commisso confirmed a few days ago that the troika of manager Stefano Pioli, sporting director Daniele Pradè, and general director Alessandro Ferrari ‘s jobs aren’t at risk. In fact, the Mediacom billionaire remains convinced that they’re all doing fine work, according to the Corriere Fiorentina (via FiorentinaNews).
Pioli is the most obvious candidate for the axe. His team looks terrible by any measure: the fewest shots on target in Serie A, 4 goals scored to 8 conceded, a single point taken from leading positions. There’s no doubt that Pioli is a wonderful human being who’s earned more than the respect he’s been shown by this club in the past but based on current results, he seems out of his depth.
Every player who’s returned from last year looks to have taken at least a step backwards (or more accurately they’ve all turned and run the other direction) and none of the new arrivals have provided any lift either. Everyone on the roster seems confused about what they’re supposed to be doing, leading to a ponderously disjointed mess on the pitch. Such a mess from top to bottom isn’t possible without the players doing a bad job, of course, but the bulk of the blame has to fall on the person responsible for organizing them, and that’s Pioli.
The mister isn’t the primary target of the supporters’ ire, though. That would be Pradè, who spent €90 million on new players this summer while dismantling last year’s perfectly adequate squad. The biggest bust has been Roberto Piccoli, who looks like he can’t play with Moise Kean and is thus a €25 million backup, but all of the transfer business has been underwhelming.
Coming hot on the heels of Raffaele Palladino’s shock resignation, which looks like a matter of the coach getting so frustrated with his sporting director that he walked away rather than find a solution to continue in his post, and it’s easy to see why the fans are fed up with the DS. Throw in several years of high profile transfer gaffs (Aleksandr Kokorin, Lucas Torreira, M’Bala Nzola, et cetera) and you have a perfect scapegoat for the Curva Fiesole’s ire.
That ire will just wash off Pradé and Pioli, though, because the man signing the paychecks isn’t bothered. One of Commisso’s defining traits is loyalty to “his” guys; never forget the proposed statue for Giuseppe Iachini, for example. Pradè‘s been part of this project from the start and, since Barone’s tragic demise, has been the central figure in running the club. Pioli’s the latest in a succession that includes Vincenzo Montella, Cesare Prandelli, Giancarlo Antognoni, and Borja Valero, and he’s doubly useful as a shield: fans don’t have the stomach to attack him with the same vitriol they would another coach, which in turn buys management more time.
Rocco’s receded farther into the background with each passing year, leaving the bombastic enthusiasm of his early tenure in the distant past. He’s been in the US since April and hasn’t announced a return date; if and when he does, it’s hard to imagine his presence will change anything given his explicit support for the current state of affairs. Maybe he’ll rouse himself to attack a reporter who’s strayed too far from the pack and called for some sort of changes, but he won’t do anything to upset the status quo.
Perhaps he has a point. Zooming out, Fiorentina’s been on a solid upward trajectory for the past few years, rising from a lower mid-table side to one that’s consolidated its European credentials. Every club experiences the odd wobble; for a businessman of Commisso’s pedigree, the long view is the only one that matters. If a single setback derails the strategy, Commisso and company would be rightly pilloried for smallmindedness, for Zamparinesque meddling, for lacking scope and creativity of vision. Maybe it’s not disinterest from the owner so much as wisdom from a distance.
The game isn’t played through a telescope, though. It’s played through a microscope every Sunday. We don’t zoom out when we watch the game. We want to get closer, to see our heroes sweating and straining for the badge on their shirts, to watch their dedication mirror ours with every pass, every tackle, every little flick of the eyes. We want a club that understands the immediacy of being a fan, the way that we live for match day, a sunburst through the gray clouds of our own week.
Perhaps Commisso’s focus on the bottom line has superseded his appreciation for what happens on the pitch, but that’s not the case for the fans. We don’t live and die with every financial spreadsheet. We live and die with every game, and every game is yet another piece of evidence that something is irretrievably broken at Fiorentina. If Commisso , Pradè, and Pioli (in that order) can’t see the need for decisive and immediate change, the supporters won’t be long in making it even more clear in the exact ways that ownership doesn’t want.
