Delio Rossi held up his hands. âÂÂI am not Padre Pio, but a football coach,â he said. Miracle work, it seemed, was not his calling.
Yet after taking the Fiorentina job in November, some supporters were indeed shouting: âÂÂSanto Subito.â Rossi, they claimed, should be made a saint immediately, for he had exorcised a demon and delivered them from evil. Sinisa Mihajlovic was finally gone.
For 18 months the Fiorentina faithful had whistled, insulted and protested against the Serb. So when their prayers were answered after a 1-0 defeat to Chievo, it was thought Rossi would lead the club back on to the righteous path.
Sunday nightâÂÂs events appear to indicate, however, that Fiorentina are still on a road to perdition, and that for all his faults, Mihajlovic wasnâÂÂt the only problem. Things go much deeper.
Condemned to a 1-0 defeat at home to bottom club Lecce, anger proved hard to contain in the stands. Owner Andrea Della Valle had left his seat in the Tribuna dâÂÂOnore out of superstition at half-time. With hindsight, it was a lucky escape. When the full-time whistle was blown, his executive president Mario Cognigni and one of the clubâÂÂs advisers Paolo Panerai were spat at and subjected to a series of bad-tempered chants. Security had to be called and they were escorted to safety.
Fiorentina ultras then tried to break into the dressing room. They were held back, but a crowd outside the Artemio Franchi estimated to be 500-strong lingered for two hours after the game and demanded that their message be heard and taken on board. A delegation of seven ultras sought and obtained a meeting with Cognigni, chief executive Sandro Mencucci, communications director Gianfranco Teotino and team manager Vincenzo Guerini. After quarter of an hour or so, they re-emerged without any trace of satisfaction on their faces. The question is: what did they talk about?
According to MondayâÂÂs Il Corriere dello Sport, the ultras outlined three specific concerns. The first was that the club doesnâÂÂt appear to have total control over its players. All too often this season, there have been indications that thereâÂÂs a culture of indiscipline and lack of professionalism among some of the players in the Fiorentina dressing room. Admittedly Houssine Kharja was somewhat harshly punished for arriving late for training because of his commuting to-and-from Milan where his family live. Stevan Jovetic, Adem Ljajic and Khoumar Babacar made the headlines too after they were banned from driving for not having the right paperwork. Fans can live with that.
What they canâÂÂt live with, though, is hearing about key members of the first team partying until the small hours in FlorenceâÂÂs nightclubs before games in a difficult season. Juan Manuel Vargas was caught in October. Alessio Cerci and Andrea Lazzarri were spotted in November. They were each named and shamed in the local press, then fined.
Cerci in particular has come in for criticism for not âÂÂrespecting the city.â Asked to move his illegally parked Maserati by a traffic warden, he allegedly refused to do so until after he had finished his dinner. His case wasnâÂÂt helped last week when, in response to being dropped for FiorentinaâÂÂs Coppa Italia clash against Roma, his girlfriend launched a tirade on her Facebook page once they were knocked out. âÂÂNo Cerci? No Coppa Italia!!! Ahahaha⦠bye bye Delio [Rossi] and bye bye Fiorentina fans,â she wrote.
The second issue on the ultrasâ agenda was the Della Valle familyâÂÂs growing distance from the club. The third centered on a lack of investment. The two are not mutually exclusive. For the last two years, FiorentinaâÂÂs owners have perceived a distinct lack of gratitude for resurrecting the club they had bought in 2002, which was then playing under a different name in Serie C2 and still reeling from the effects of bankruptcy. They felt let down, first by coach Cesare Prandelli, who decided to take the Italy job in 2010, then by FlorenceâÂÂs mayor Matteo Renzi, who shelved their plans for a new stadium with hotels and retail space. There was genuine disillusion.
Diego Della Valle, AndreaâÂÂs brother, wrote an open letter outlining the situation: âÂÂI need to know with extreme clarity what the city and the fans want and expect for the future of Fiorentina, to understand if there is still the motivation for the owners to continue down a common path of sporting passion, to build the best possible future and to restore all the pleasure of going to the stadium to spend an entertaining afternoon. If there arenâÂÂt these conditions then, as we have said before, the owners are ready to step aside.âÂÂ
Amid growing protests from the fans, the moment had come to ask if their time and money could not be spent better elsewhere. Last January, for instance, they committed ã21.5 million to the restoration of the Colosseum in Rome, while transfer expenditure at Fiorentina throughout the season was ã13.3 million, the lowest outlay since the club returned to Serie A in 2004.
As the disenchanted Della Valle brothers withdrew into themselves, the teamâÂÂs best players began to lose faith and perhaps came to believe that FiorentinaâÂÂs ambition didnâÂÂt match their own. Captain Riccardo Montolivo revealed he wouldnâÂÂt be signing a new contract after his existing deal expires in 2012 and was stripped of the armband. Alberto GilardinoâÂÂs âÂÂfire had gone outâÂÂ.
While itâÂÂs useless to keep players who no longer want to play for the club, itâÂÂs also counter-productive in GilardinoâÂÂs case to sell one of ItalyâÂÂs best centre-forwards to Genoa for just ã7 million, as Fiorentina did last week, partly because, with Santiago Silva about to be sold back to Argentina, Fiorentina didnâÂÂt have a replacement lined up and would now be forced into playing Jovetic and Ljajic up front.
With no natural strikers in a young and inexperienced squad, is it any wonder that the fansâ raised a few eyebrows? This is a club that, in recent memory, has had Luca Toni, Giampaolo Pazzini, Adrian Mutu and Gilardino leading the offensive line. Now too much was being asked of Jovetic. As for Ljajic, on being played out of position, he missed sitters against Roma and Lecce.
To make matters worse, negotiations to sign the much-maligned Amauri from Juventus hit a snag over the playersâ excessive wages demands. Then came a report that Valon Behrami, one of FiorentinaâÂÂs most committed players in a dispirited bunch, had been cheekily asked for in part-exchange by Juventus.
Interviewed on Sunday night, a shaken up but conciliatory Andrea Della Valle promised action. âÂÂItâÂÂs true we deserve more. The fans deserve it too, naturally. They do what they think is right the protest is understandable if itâÂÂs civil. It was a cold shower that we didnâÂÂt expect. With another three points we would have been nearer the European places. Now we have to roll up our sleeves and make up for our mistakes. The market still offers us two weeks of trade and weâÂÂll do something soon.âÂÂ
Fiorentina currently lie 13th in Serie A. ItâÂÂs hardly a disaster, but also no real improvement in terms of results than those they achieved under Mihajlovic, even if the teamâÂÂs style of football has sometimes been easier on the eye. Rossi insists that for the rest of this season âÂÂblood and tearsâ will need to be wept by his players. What Fiorentina need more than ever, though, is to start smiling again.
