This international break has been absolutely brutal for Fiorentina fans, giving us a fortnight to wallow in misery while the misfiring forwards connect on international duty and the injuries pile up ahead
of a brutal upcoming schedule. The team’s hopelessness has resulted in a lot of soul-searching and a lot of looking back over Rocco Commisso’s 6-year ownership of the club, wondering where it all went wrong and reaching back to turning points that are obvious in hindsight but seemed maybe sort of a little bit almost reasonable at the time. Or not. Whatever.
Because we could all use some positivity, I’m not going to go back over every misstep the club has made in those 6+ years (and yes, there are a lot of them). Instead, I’m going to look back at the guys who’ve brought me the most joy over that stretch and escape the misery of Fiorentina fandom by imagining the world where we got to see a team with all of them together at the height of their powers. Yep, it’s the Commisso-era Fiorentina XI.
What are the rules? I don’t entirely know. Maybe I’m going by the best season each player had in Florence. Maybe it’s the impact over the whole of their stay in the city. Maybe it’s the old Potter Stewart test: “I know it when I see it.” Regardless, this is purely subjective and you’re welcome to disagree. I imagine there are a couple points that you will.
Goalkeeper
This one isn’t too hard. With all respect to the frequently-overlooked Pietro Terracciano, who was never worse than solid and was sometimes excellent, the obvious answer is David de Gea. He’s still a bit of an adventure with the ball at his feet and I wouldn’t mind if he were a bit more proactive on crosses, but he is without a doubt the best shot stopper Fiorentina’s had since the heady days of Sebastien Frey. It’s not just recency bias. Dave is just amazing.
Centerbacks
Once again, there’s an obvious answer here: Nikola Milenković has made a mountain-sized impact at Nottingham Forest, just as we all predicted. Big Nicky suffered a bit towards the end of his Viola career because we took his excellence for granted, but the past couple years have confirmed how badly this team misses his quality at the back.
Instead, we need to find his partner. Lucas Martínez Quarta deserves a look for the sheer joy/chaos ratio he created but he wasn’t ever effective for more than about 4 games in a row before falling back to earth with a thump. Germán Pezzella was a wonderful club servant but had dropped off by 2019. For me, it’s between Igor and Luca Ranieri.
Igor’s 2021-2022 was really good. He was imperious on the ball and excellent at reading the game. His only weakness was dealing with aerial balls. He also brought some physical comedy in terms of his sheer breadth. In contrast, Ranieri’s never quite hit that level. He does pop up with some big goals and produces highlight tackles on a regular basis but his physical limitations mean his ceiling’s always lower. However, Luca Ranieri’s attitude, leadership, silly mustache, and longer tenure mean something to me, so I’m tipping the scales slightly in his favor.
Fullbacks
Rightback is another easy one. Dodô is the only good rightback Fiorentina’s had since at least Lorenzo di Silvestri. He’s brilliant. Case closed. The hipster might proffer Álvaro Odriozola, but there’s a reason we should bully hipsters.
Leftback is a little more difficult. Cristiano Biraghi, despite his unpopularity with some fans, was a good player for years and did some ridiculous stuff—the McGregor walk, come on—while wearing the armband, but the nature of his exit has me leaning towards Robin Gosens. The Goose was marvelous last year, decisive in both penalty areas, and provides a level of steadiness and leadership that I love.
Central midfield
I’m expecting this to be the first place I diverge from a lot of you. Lucas Torreira is the first choice for me. I still regret management’s break with Toothless Lucas and I don’t think the team’s ever quite filled his position. He’s not quite a regista and probably needs a more disciplined player next to him but his ferocious enthusiasm was a joy.
As much as I don’t like to admit it, I think that Sofyan Amrabat deserves a spot here as well. His 2022-2023 season, particularly the first half, was unbelievable, even if he never hit that level before or after and wound up becoming a bit of a meme at Manchester United.
For the third spot, though, I really struggled. Rolando Mandragora, Gaetano Castrovilli, Giacomo Bonaventura, Yacine Adli, Danilo Cataldi, and Edoardo Bove are all good answers. If you want to take any of them over Amrabat, I won’t argue very hard; it’s eye-of-the-beholder stuff as far as I’m concerned. I basically went process of elimination: Roly’s unholy heater last year came out of nowhere because he was so anonymous previously. Castrovilli had one amazing season under Iachini but regressed every subsequent campaign. Adli was marvelous for half a year but fell away. Cataldi’s real impact greatly surpassed his ability. Bove sort of played winger more than midfield, kind of, and his impact was sadly brief.
So I’m going with Jack “Only Scores Bangers” Bonaventura by default. Again, your mileage may vary and that’s okay. The ex-Atalanta and Milan man had some clunky moments—the constant left-footed shots from distance—but he was a good soldier and provided moments of class that the team desperately needed. Since he plays a bit higher than Torreira and Amrabat, it also balances the XI a little better than any of the other options.
Wingers
This is a two horse race and those two horses are Federico Chiesa and Nico González. Fede’s brilliance was often dimmed by his teammates’ incompetence and the roles he was asked to play (a wingback, Beppe? Really?) but nobody can doubt his quality, even if we hate how it ended. I’m inclined to look back on him a bit more fondly now that he’s left Juventus, too.
Nico was the best player and only real goal threat on teams that made 3 finals. His credentials are unimpeachable, even if he’s a pretty weird player as an off-ball forward who was cast as the main man in Florence. Just imagine if he’d had a consistently competent presence on the other flank to take a bit of attention away from him.
The only other possible options were Riccardo Saponara and Franck Ribery. I will always love the Cheese but I don’t think he ever had the game-after-game impact of Nico or Chiesa despite the unforgettable moments. Ribery also provided moments but I maintain that he hurt the team by slowing every attack to a crawl and making everyone play around him in a system that was designed to go so much faster.
Striker
This was the second hardest decision for me. Fiorentina’s had 2 good strikers under Commisso’s watch: Aleksandr Kokorin and Nicolò Zaniolo. I kid, I kid. It’s obviously Dušan Vlahović and Moise Kean, and like the midfielders, I don’t think you can pick incorrectly if you pick one of them. I do want to shout out my beloved idiot chungus Arthur Cabral and now that I have, we can forget him again.
Vlahović was really, really bad. Until he wasn’t. Then he was the best number 9 in Italy for about 9 months before forcing a move to Juve, a betrayal that stung even worse because he was such a little dickhead about it. I’m not judging his off-pitch stuff, though, and he was an animal between the lines, consistently outperforming his xG and scoring goals he really shouldn’t have scored even though everyone in the stadium knew that he was the only threat.
Even so, I’m going with Moise Kean here. Part of it is that Susan was very bad while he was still in his chrysalis, but it’s more about the type of player the Moose is, and that type of player is “act of a god who revels in mayhem and laughs at your tears.” It wasn’t just the fact that he put the team on his back last year. It was the fact that he did it while also being the funniest player in Serie A and maybe the world.
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Coach
I don’t think this one is too hard either. While Raffaele Palladino’s stock has only shot up as despair envelops the club in the wake of his departure, it’s got to be Vincenzo Italiano. He wasn’t a perfect coach by any means. His tactical inflexibility was maddening at times but he took the club higher than it had been in nearly a decade despite the turmoil that’s constantly swirled around the organization since Commisso bought it, quieting the roar of discontent that’s otherwise threatened to overwhelm everything. Cousin Vinnie is the best coach this team’s had since Vincenzo Montella 1.0 and it’s not even close.
“But wait,” you ask. “Why does Igor get left out based on one bad season and Amrabat doesn’t? And Castrovilli’s peak was higher than Jack’s. And Vlahović…well, actually, screw that guy.” I hear you. I don’t disagree. But this is my Commisso-era Fiorentina XI and this article is over.
