When Cagliari released its roster to face Fiorentina last week, Roberto Piccoli’s name was notably absent, all but confirming the transfer rumors that had floated around him for the previous month. Today, Fiorentina officialized what we already knew: the big striker is officially a Viola player.
According to Nicolò Schira, Fiorentina paid €25 million to Cagliari, with certain performance bonuses also looming. Depending on their
size (Violanews says it’s €2 million and a 10% sell-on fee) and whether Piccoli hits them, that could make him the most expensive player in club history, which reflects the hyperinflation in the player market more than anything else. His contract will run for 5 years and expire in the summer of 2030, paying him €1.6 million a year.
Piccoli is 24 and just hitting his prime. The statistics say that he’s a target man, as he was 2nd in the league in both headed shots and 2nd among strikers in aerial duels won, but he’s got the pace to get in behind and the strength to battle with defenders. In short, he looks like the sort of rugged, versatile number 9 that every team has been trying to buy for the past 18 months.
His fit in Florence is a bit strange, as Moise Kean is the obvious superstar up front and manager Stefano Pioli has highlighted the necessity of Albert Guðmundsson’s fantasia for the team, while Edin Džeko probably didn’t sign just to ride the bench. Perhaps the mister is planning to return to the tridente we saw in preseason, rotating Kean, Piccoli, and Džeko across the front with Guðmundsson and Jacopo Fazzini as the trequartista.
The fan reception to Piccoli has been rather muted, at least partly for reasons completely out of his control. It’s easy to point to his statistics—his 10 goals last year was a career high at senior level—and ask how on earth he can be worth €25 million, but there’s optimism amongst those in the know that he could eventually feature for the Azzurri, although I find that hard to believe with Kean, Gianluca Scamacca, Mateo Retegui, Lorenzo Lucca, the Esposito brothers, and Francesco Camarda in the picture.
The bigger reason for the uncertain reception in Florence, though, is the timing. After watching Fiorentina white-knuckle its way to a draw at Cagliari, the Viola midfield is clearly the biggest weakness on the team. Dropping a potential team-record fee on a new striker when there are other areas that desperately need that investment is concerning, although Pradè doubtless has another trick or two to play before the transfer window slams shut.
That fee isn’t Piccoli’s fault, though, and adding another young, physically dominant striker is exciting. It’s not hard to imagine a world in which Piccoli does the dirty work of battling with opposing defenders, freeing up Kean to make his blistering runs in behind. The guy’s got some talent; now it’s up to him to show us and Pioli to create the right conditions for him.
