“We need that culture that pushes us to analyze football not always or not only on the basis of the result. However, the #Italian #shield #is about to fall”
Raise your hand if you remember what happened on February 10, 2022. # For those distracted, or for those who have simply forgotten, here #is a brief summary to refresh everyone’s memory. # We played in #Bergamo, they were the quarter-finals of the #Italian Cupand the challenge was between Atalanta And Florentine. # 93rd minute, score at 2-2 after a beautiful back-and-forth (Viola advantage with Piatek, Nerazzurri equalizer and overtaking with Zappacosta and Boga, new equalizer with another goal from Piatek) and Fiorentina 10 against 11for the expulsion of Martinez Quarta. # What then happens #is that the referee blows the whistle free kick just beyond midfield in favor of Italiano’s team (in his first season in Florence) and that the coach sends five men into the penalty area, plus one on the attacking midfield and another high up on the left. # We are sure that everyone remembers the rest: ball cleared, collected by Milenkovic, right from the edge and goal. # Victory, collective madness, excessive celebration and Fiorentina in the semi-final.
Why this flashback?
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Simple. # Why then, in a situation substantially identical to that of Wednesday evening, Italian he behaved exactly the same way. In short, he decided to take a risk, and he was right. # This time, however, it worked out for him and, right on time, a deluge of criticism and judgments that were severe to say the least fell upon him. # Yet, in fact, we do not remember taking similar positions in that distant February of ’22. We don’t remember any criticisms for excessive risk or for the “madness” (just to use terms read or heard in recent hours) to send all those players on the attack despite the numerical inferiority and the time now practically up. # This #is to say that every point of view #is obviously respectable, which it certainly #is you can argue about that attitude That led to Lookman’s goal, but a bit of coherence would be needed. # Above all, we would need that culture that pushes us to analyzing football not always or not only based on the result. # Personally, I remain convinced that the type of courage education planted by the coach has in the long run produced more benefits than harm.
A “Champions Fiorentina”
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Of course, to think like this we must start from the assumption that in these three #years Fiorentina has (almost) always had one squad decidedly lower than those with which she found herself fighting and that, precisely, only thanks to the game, the organization and in any case the commitment of the players was it possible to achieve certain goals. # The problem, a huge problem, #is that contrary beliefs were circulated first of all by society. # A club that has certainly made some progress in the meantime has achieved an extraordinary work like the Viola Park. # He invested in some interesting players (first Nico, then Beltran), he focused on guys like Kayode And Ranieribut who has spent the last #two and a half #years pushing the concept that what he had set up was one “Fiorentina as Champions”. # If that #is the starting point, then it #is also okay to consider the coach guilty for having lost a semi-final of the #Italian Cup against an Atalanta team that, just a few days earlier, had knocked Liverpool out of the Europa League.
Future: self-criticism and ambition
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One consideration, that on team valuewhich makes me think with a “pinch” of anxiety about the future. # Because if you think you have a squad capable of competing for the top four or five positions, the risk #is, for the umpteenth time, of making an unambitious transfer market and thinking that changing the coach might be enough to make the difference. breakthrough. # I, however, fear that exactly the opposite could happen. # What if instead everything that has happened in recent months was useful to do healthy self-criticism, to analyze with a minimum of objectivity what you have and what you are, then an interesting cycle could also start again. # And let’s be clear. # An almost total elimination (in some ways desirable) would also be fine, perhaps centered on young people (of value) and on a coach who sees Fiorentina as a place in which to establish himself to the attention of great football.
