The vibes around Fiorentina are as rotten as they’ve been this early in the season since I can remember. The club looks like a disaster and the fans are understandably restless. As everyone hunts for a way out of this hole, though, there’s one solution that isn’t up for discussion: Stefano Pioli isn’t facing the axe, according to Fabrizio Romanò (via LaViola), and the Viola haven’t met with any other managers.
Despite the supporters’ discontent, this isn’t a surprise. Rocco Commisso has proven remarkably
resistant to firing coaches during his tenure as team owner and isn’t likely to sack a big name who’s only been in the job for a few months, particularly when he’s also still paying Raffaele Palladino. As long as Palladino’s unemployed, in fact, Pioli’s probably got full job security, because the brass won’t want to pay 3 managers’ salaries. Add in the sheer absurdity of firing a guy after 5 Serie A games, no matter how woeful, and you’ve got a recipe for a bit more stability than you otherwise might expect.
Pioli’s come under fire but everyone’s favorite scapegoat is, of course, sporting director Daniele Pradè. This summer, he spent nearly €50 million on Roberto Piccoli, Simon Sohm, Nicolò Fagioli, and Albert Guðmundsson, all of whom have struggled badly thus far. Throw in Edin Džeko’s €3.3 million salary and it’s a squad-building disaster, one that might take another couple of transfer windows to escape.
To Pradè’s mild credit, he’s been less intrusive this year. There was a lot of friction between him and Palladino last year and that led to the mister’s shock resignation 24 hours after management publicly backed him. Pradè’s had fraught relationships with previous managers (Vincenzo Montella, Cesare Prandelli) so it’s a good thing that he’s kept quiet and let Pioli handle this stuff rather than sticking his oar in and alienating a coach who’s already got enough on his plate.
If Pioli can’t pull this squad out of its nosedive, though, Pradè might start feeling some heat as well. The schedule over the next month is brutal—vs Sigma, vs Roma, at Milan, at Rapid Vienna, vs Bologna, at Inter—and it’s not hard to imagine Fiorentina failing to win any of those matches, which would almost necessarily require Pioli’s dismissal. Even if it’s not entirely the manager’s fault, a team simply can’t go winless through the first 3 months of the season.
Sacking Pioli won’t release the pressure, though. It’ll simply transfer it to Pradè, no matter who he brings aboard to run the team. After 4 straight years in the Conference League, this season already looks like a giant couple of steps backwards, and that will fall squarely on the DS, whose coaching hires and transfer moves over the past couple years have led inexorably to where we are now.
One of the great injustices of sports is that you’re constantly victimized by your own success. A single bad year usually means getting fired, even if your track record is otherwise unblemished, and Pradè’s record isn’t otherwise unblemished. If Fiorentina can’t turn things around, we could be looking at a full-blown fan revolt against Pradè, who has Commisso’s complete trust as the Mediacom billionaire has stepped back over the past couple years. Rocco’s as stubborn as they come and, as previously mentioned, hates firing “his” guys, so this could lead to a deeply uncomfortable situation.
Pioli knows all this. He knows that he’s coaching not just for his job but also for Pradè’s, albeit indirectly, since the DS will be around long after the manager’s gone. Given Pioli’s gravitas and the respect both the supporters and media (every journalist has united in a chorus insisting that he’s the right man for the job), he’s a useful meat shield to deflect criticism away from his superiors on the org chart, a meat shield that they won’t want to lose until it’s absolutely necessary.
