A very important weekend awaits Luciano Spalletti and Juventus. Considering there’s only two more weekends left in the 2025-26 season, they’re all important these days. But with two games against teams that consider Juventus giant rivals, there will potentially be plenty of intensity on the field as Spalletti’s squad looks to wrap up Champions League qualification and look to prevent a massive (extremely) late-season fumble.
Juventus are one of the five fixtures that will kickoff at a little earlier
than usual lunchtime window on Sunday, with Fiorentina — now safe from any sort of relegation threat that has hung over the Franchi for months — making their way to Turin for the Bianconeri’s final home game of the season.
With La Viola taking the Allianz Stadium field this weekend, it’s only right that we bring our bestest buddy Tito back for another round of questions about his favorite team that, luckily for him, won’t be relegated to Serie B this season. It hasn’t been an easy season for Mr. Tito, but he is such a nice person that he decided to make some time for us to discuss a few things about what has happened over the course of the last nine months that has led Fiorentina to one of their worst seasons in quite a long time.
So let’s not wait any further.
Here is our chat with the Viola Nation’s head honcho and an all-around good dude named Tito.
DP: Tito, Tito, Tito … It’s that time of the season again where you drop in to your second-favorite SB Nation blog and chat with us. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? I’m guessing it’s almost as exciting as seeing this Fiorentina season actually come to an end.
So, because of that, I want to ask you something: If you were to compare this Fiorentina season to something, what would it be? Pretend I’m a dummy for a minute (or longer) and relate it to something I might know about rather than calcio terms.
TK: Well, Danny, you’re a cat guy. Some people might even say a cat daddy. I wouldn’t go that far, of course, but some people are saying it. Imagine for a moment that you own a cat that has, for the past 9 months, been leaving a dead rat somewhere inside your house once or twice a week. You don’t know where the rat is. Sometimes it’s creatively hidden. Sometimes it takes days to find, sometimes boom, it’s right there on your pillow.
Fortunately, in this metaphor that’s in the process of really getting away from me, your local vet knows a pet hypnotist and has gotten you an appointment in a couple weeks. Until then, you’ll just have to deal with the rodent corpses. Does that make it better? Not really. I mean, a dead rat is a dead rat, even if you know it’s the penultimate dead rat of the season. You just can’t wait for this whole episode to be over.
Yeah, this metaphor has really gotten away from me. Sorry. I can only plead Fiorentina-induced psychosis from watching this team for all year.
DP: So, the natural follow-up question to that feels obvious: What has it been like to watch this Fiorentina season knowing that for a vast majority of it up until a couple of weeks ago getting relegated was a distinct possibility?
TK: Fiorentina’s mathematically safe but spiritually speaking, this team deserves to get relegated. Remember back in the fall when your buddy Max Allegri named his Champions League contenders and ignored Fiorentina? Stefano Pioli made a point of writing that on a white board in the dressing room as motivation, which is like a washcloth being mad that it hasn’t been considered a candidate to dry out the Pacific Ocean.
Anyways, it’s been stressful, man. Beyond the horror of being stuck in a real relegation scrap for the first time in nearly a decade, there are a bunch of ancillary terrors in there. For one thing, not a lot of teams in the drop zone also have to cope with midweek European games. Don’t get me wrong: the prospect of getting relegated and winning the Conference League was a good bit, but it was also physically and emotionally draining for everyone involved. Oh, and that relegation? It would’ve meant spending the club’s 100th year anniversary in Serie B, which is a humiliation too great to imagine.
There’s also the additional stress of the refurbishment of the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which generates unforeseen expenses on a monthly basis and lends a real tinpot feel to the broadcasts and matchday experience. Throw in the organizational chaos of losing 2 head coaches in a matter of months along with the 3 highest-ranking back room figures (Rocco Commisso, Joe Barone, and Daniele Pradè) in the same year and the stress of a potential sale in the wake of the owner’s passing and you’ve got a unique cocktail of misery, which is a fitting epitaph for any Viola season, really.
DP: And yet, despite the relegation battle being 100% real and not just something to work into your writing as a tongue-in-cheek joke for a few weeks, Fiorentina still made the Conference League quarterfinals! Admit it, you’re going to miss that competition, right? Even if you and I both know you won’t miss that Thursday-Sunday grind.
TK: I’m on record as being a big Conference League fan and that hasn’t changed. I find the ultra-optimization of the very highest level to be boring: every team is trying to be either PSG or Arsenal. The stylistic monoculture just doesn’t do it for me. I know this makes me sound like a hipster (is that a term that applies after 2016ish?) and maybe I am, but the idiosyncrasies and weird archetypes you get in the third tier of European competition make the game much closer to the one I play with my Over 30 side.
Not to get too philosophical but I get more enjoyment from a game that I can relate to on a personal level. When you get down to the best clubs on the continent, it just looks like somebody playing FIFA to me.
So yeah, I’ll miss it. There’s always wacky stuff going on in the Conference League, even though in the ruthless world of calcio moderno, it’s not worth the trouble. In this era of efficiency over style, superfluity and silliness are getting squeezed out and I’ll get them where I can. Although I sure won’t miss making excuses for why I’m unavailable for a few hours every Thursday at either 9 a.m. or noon.
DP: But let me guess, you ain’t going to miss this Fiorentina at all, huh? You might not exactly be fired up for the World Cup even though you are in one of the host cities, but I’m guessing these are 180 minutes that you can’t wait to see be a thing of the past and then officially refer to every single thing that happened in this Fiorentina season officially in the past tense once and for all.
TK: I’ve watched bad Fiorentina teams. But even those bad teams had a spark. There were fun players or fun moments (Patrick Cutrone celebrating a goal by stealing Beppe Iachini’s hat is one of the funniest things I’ve seen on a pitch). This group is so entirely lacking in fun or character that I can’t believe it.
And c’mon, look at the roster! Moise Kean turned himself into Serie A’s greatest heel last year, powerbombing every pathetic loser who dared oppose him through the molten core of the earth. Dodô’s tiny and always smiling. Fabiano Parisi is the King of the Rats. Rolando Mandragora occasionally scores from the parking lot. This ought to be a good and fun team and it categorically isn’t. Of all the awful Fiorentinas (Fiorentinae? Fiorentine?) I’ve seen, none of have left me as empty as this one.
So, to answer your question, yeah man. I am very ready for these 180 minutes to be over.
DP: So does that mean there’s anything — like anything — you’ve been happy about with this season? Is there any sort of reason as to why Juventus supporters should be worried about how Fiorentina might play other than their just general hated of anything bianconero?
TK: The only thing that brings me joy as a Fiorentina fan is the knowledge that someday the exploding sun will swallow this cold, lifeless planet and leave no trace of it in an uncaring universe.
Fiorentina’s done a decent job of hoisting its carcass off the ground and raising its level to meet Juve over the past few years (e.g. the 1-1 in the reverse fixture). That said, this team is clearly already on vacation. The lack of intensity over the past month has been astounding; even when relegation was still a mathematical possibility, the players were getting outworked in every game, trusting that Cremonese and company are so ass that the results wouldn’t matter. I’m honestly a bit irritated that they were proven right.
Anyways, I don’t think the squad’s going to summon forth a herculean effort for the fans based on civic pride or whatever. For one thing, Fiorentina fans are still banned from away games after clashing with their Roma counterparts on a highway outside Turin earlier this year. The tifosi, who’ve been unbelievably supportive of the team despite all its recent setbacks, have made it clear that they find the effort levels unacceptable too. The players have said all the right things, but their actions belie their words.
tl;dr this team is ass and has shown no intention of not being ass for weeks
DP: Prediction for this weekend? Dare I even ask?
TK: Realistically? Probably something like a routine 3-0 in which Juve never gets out of second gear. Goals for Vlahović (of course), Bremer (Fiorentina’s set piece defense is atrocious), and someone really weird. Openda, maybe? Some Primavera kid given a debut in the dying moments? David de Gea will make some good saves and everyone else will be cheeks.
Because I’m committed to the bit, though, I’ll predict the same 1-2 Fiorentina win I predict in literally every match preview I write. The Viola will open the scoring when a seagull harpoons the ball with its beak and drops it over Michele Di Gregorio’s head and into the net. Vlahović will score (of course) as Juve push everyone forward but de Gea will stand on his head and keep them out with the help of like 8 shots off the woodwork before a small meteor hits the pitch, forcing the game to be abandoned. Footage of the event, however, will show that the impact knocked the ball whooshing into the Bianconeri net and the FIGC will retroactively count the goal and declare Fiorentina the winner.
And that’s the most realistic scenario for an away win that I can imagine. Danny, it’s been a very bad year.
DP: That makes a lot of sense coming from somebody who has watched Fiorentina all season. And because of that, we will end things there. Tito, as always, we thank you for stopping by.
