14 Italian journalists came to the match against Maccabi Haifa in Budapest to accompany Fiorentina on their journey to the Conference League final. The team from Florence says it openly, they want to be there again, just like last year, only this time they also want to win the European title. But on the way there, they need to get a good result tonight (Thursday) at 22:00 against Maccabi Haifa in the away game in Hungary.
Fiorentina won two Italian championships in the past, in the 1950s and 1960s. These were the beautiful years of the purples. They reached the final of the Champions League in 1957 and lost, they reached the final of the UEFA Cup and lost, and they reached the final of the Conference League last season and lost. But they have one European title, after all, they won the Cup Holders in 1961. Anyway, this time they want To break the curse in an open European factory and with the help of the sought-after coach Vincenzo Italiano to obtain another title.
But the Italian team is in a trap. Because it recorded only two wins in the nine league games it had since the beginning of 2024, results that dropped it to eighth place in the table, it must also concentrate on the Italian league and occupy a higher place at the top. Therefore, her coach talked about rotation before the game against the Greens.
Between their games against Maccabi Haifa, Fiorentina will have to think about how to distribute the forces between all the players of the squad. In the coming days, it will have a series of difficult games that will affect the fight for the tickets to Europe through the Italian league, because it will face the fifth-placed Roma, who ended the chapter with Jose Mourinho and appointed Daniele De Rossi, who brought a new spirit to the club, against the sixth-placed Atalanta, who again aim to reach the Champions League , and later this month she will also face Milan the third and Juventus the second.
Fiorentina has been dreaming for several years to return to the top of Serie A, but in recent years it has been difficult for them to break into the top 7 or top 6 because there are the biggest names there. Whatever you do, there will always be big budget clubs like Napoli, Lazio, Milan, Inter, Roma, Juventus and Atalanta who have made a lot of money from participating in international matches in Europe. Yes, even little Atalanta has been in the Champions League several times in the last decade, so there is a certain gap between them and Fiorentina.
In order to create a tradition in Europe, Fiorentina needs to go far in the Conference League as well, but at the same time, as mentioned, in the Italian League they must not take their foot off the gas either. Last season, Fiorentina finished in eighth place and got the ticket to the Conference League only because seventh-placed Juventus was kicked out of Europe due to irregularities in the club’s financial management. This season, so they think in the land of the boot, it has a quality squad capable of bringing it even to fourth place. If Bologna does it this season and surprises everyone, then why won’t Fiorentina do it? She knows that fourth place, and maybe even fifth place, will get her the ticket to the Champions League.
“The most important thing for Fiorentina is to get a good result in the first game against Maccabi Haifa so that they have a calm head for the rest,” claimed an Italian journalist who accompanies the team in Budapest. “The team wants to reach the final of the Conference League again and plans to play there in the stadium in Athens in the summer, but it must not take its eyes off what is happening in Serie A because it is entering money time and every victory against the top rivals is important. This is the most important period for the team this season. That is why it is not clear to us In which car will Italiano go.”
As far as the Italians are concerned, the very fact that the game is taking place in Budapest on a neutral ground because of the war in Israel – it already lowers the pressure threshold from the game, because they remember what happened to Juventus at the Sami Ofer Stadium in the Champions League, where the old lady lost 2:0. “We started the Conference League with a match in Budapest, we already quite feel at home here,” said those accompanying the team in Hungary with a smile.
Muhammad Abu Fani, Franzvarous’s midfielder, who played against Fiorentina this season, also lives in Budapest, only six kilometers from the stadium where Maccabi Haifa will host the Italians. It is true that Fiorentina advanced to the round of 16 from first place in the group stage of the Conference League, but they did not beat Franzvarosz, because the Hungarians ended the matches against them twice in a draw. The group made it difficult for Viola by taking an attitude of non-stop personal guarding. “One of Abu Fani’s tasks was to guard Nico Gonzalez,” analyzed the city’s soccer fans, “he did it excellently but it was not easy. Franzvaros’ approach was to try to get him out of the game at any cost and it worked for them. The players were aggressive against them.”
Nico Gonzalez is the star of Fiorentina. The coach usually changes Fiorentina’s lineup every game – except for the last two games against Lazio and Torino, in which for the first time in a long time he came up with the same 11 again – but Nico usually starts regularly in whatever lineup he has. “Nico Gonzalez played well at the beginning of the season, but got injured in Budapest against Franzvarosz,” the coach mentioned Vincenzo Italiano before the match against Maccabi Haifa. “Nico continued to play, but after he was injured in Budapest he had to return to the physical abilities that characterized him and he had a bit of a problem with that. In the end he came back to himself, step by step. We never gave up on him because he improved the team, and vice versa. He is a player It is important”.
Whatever happens, Fiorentina wants a good result against Maccabi Haifa, also to avoid overtime at the end of the two games. In Florence, they were dealing with Nico’s misses in the last few days, mainly from the penalty spot. Fiorentina missed four times from the penalty spot and on the other hand scored seven successful penalties. “The team misses quite a few of their penalty kicks, what does the pressure come from when they approach to kick?”, the commentators in Italy wondered recently.
In general, Fiorentina has a certain problem in attack. In the Italian league, Fiorentina did not score in games against the three leaders – Inter, Milan and Juventus – and lost in all meetings with them because their strikers do not hit. After it sold Dusan Vlahovic for 70 million euros to Juventus and in the summer it also sold his replacement Arthur Cabral for 20 million euros to Benfica, this season the team tried to rely on Ambala Enzola and Lucas Beltran in attack, but they failed to produce numbers. Substitute striker Christian Kouma traveled to the Africa Cup of Nations to win the title with Ivory Coast and returned ill with malaria, so he was not included in the squad.
Beltran, purchased for 12 million euros from River Plate, eventually dropped to the attacking midfield position in the middle, and Italiano explained: “He can play in several different positions. He is a completely different player from the player we got, because he studied the team and Italian football – and we understood that he could contribute We also have other positions and not in the striker role. We may also try him on the wings and not just in the middle of the attacking link. He is more dangerous than these positions.”
Enzola, the Angolan striker who plays with Show in the national team and knew the end of Podgorano from Spezia, does not provide the goods and therefore dropped to the bench. In his place came Andrea Bellotti in the January transfer window, the veteran striker who left Turin in favor of Roma and from there he was transferred to Fiorentina who were stressed because they did not have a real natural striker in their squad who knows how to create goals, but he is already old and has trouble keeping up so he may get a rest in Budapest.
In this section, Maccabi Haifa can be encouraging. It is true that Fiorentina is a team that holds the ball a lot, exerts pressure and can create dangerous opportunities in front of the goal in an instant – but in many cases it lacks the sting in the attack, or the finishing foot. Lately she has been having trouble with her away games because of this.
At the same time, Florence, the city from which the group comes, is a center of art – and therefore her group also knows how to arrange creative solutions thanks to the quality of the link and protection. Although Arthur, the Brazilian midfielder who played in Barcelona and Liverpool and went on loan from Juventus to Fiorentina, was not registered in the squad because he was injured in the last game, but their coach has someone to work with.
In the attacking link, she has Jonathan Icona who won the French championship with Lille, the veteran Giacomo Bonaventura who played in Milan in the past and came back to life in the purple uniform, and as mentioned also Nico Gonzalez. They alone can decide games – and the greens will need to keep them away from their goal because at the moment of truth they appear in a big way.
In addition, they will have support from the defenders, with Christian Biragi and Michael Kayode coming up high. Before the game, by the way, his Brazilian uncle returned to the squad after a long injury and it is possible that he will get minutes in the right back position as part of the rotation. In general, Fiorentina’s defensive line is usually high, and this could play in favor of the Israeli champion if Ferenzi Piero and Anan Halaili break forward into the empty areas, what’s more, their defense is quite tired because the leading stopper Martins Cuerta suffered from kidney stones and was hospitalized last week, so there is no Which will take the load off Nikola Milinkovic and Luka Ranieri who play in the center of the defense non-stop and without real backup from the bench.
Despite the problems it has, Masai Dago will first have to think how to stop Fiorentina – and that’s not an easy thing. Last season, the team in purple reached the final of the conference league and scored the most goals in the factory. 37 goals in 15 games, that’s what the team did from the group stage to the final, so they had the best attack of all in this enterprise. For comparison, West Ham, who beat them in the final 1:2 and won the cup, scored only 29 goals in the Conference League last year.
This season, in the group stages, Fiorentina has already scored 14 goals. Only four teams scored more than her in the Conference League, including Ghent who scored 16 goals in the group stage – and Maccabi Haifa’s coach actually managed to stop her, after all she only scored a single goal against the green defense in the two meetings against her, and lost 1:2 in the playoffs.
Fiorentina is a club where the greatest players in history have played, such as Roberto Baggio, Gabriel Batistuta, Mohamed Salah and Rui Costa. It’s a club that cultivates players and sells them to the big clubs, after all, recently it also sold Dusan Vlahovic and Federico Keyza to Juventus for large sums. It’s a club that brings in money, and a lot of it, but it wants to make a leap right now.
“This has always been and always will be a club that produces top players in the world, but the coach is the most fascinating thing about this team,” said the Italian league commentator on ONE Holy pine. “This is a club that is known for attractive and quality football that is fun to watch, because that is what the audience in Florence demands. Italiano plays 4:3:3 or 4:2:3:1 with creative and attacking football, with the defenders joining in. He is one of those who tried to play football even when he was coaching In a small team like Spezia, which did good results against the big ones. He brought Fiorentina to the final of the Conference League and the final of the Italian Cup, so they have the coach with the most promising future in Italy, he is the next thing and it’s only a matter of time until he moves to a bigger club.”
Italiano is a 46-year-old coach who started in the lower leagues. In eight years he managed to go down to the fifth league, move up to the third league, move up to the second league and qualify for the first league as well. Fiorentina immediately recognized his abilities and attached him to them. Italiano’s contract ends in the summer and the coach is already in demand abroad, but Fiorentina hopes he will register success in the Conference League. His contract will be automatically renewed in the event of qualifying for the Champions League through the league, winning the Coppa Italia or winning the Conference League. All the goals are still achievable, but even if it doesn’t happen the club intends to offer him a new and upgraded contract soon.
Fiorentina wants to link its future with Italiano. Viola has big dreams to fulfill in the future and therefore she wants this coach with her in the future as well. In fact, the municipality of Florence has already started the renovation of the club’s home stadium, the Artemio Franki Stadium, when the process is finished it will be an indoor stadium with a new roof.
The city wants to celebrate in about two years the 100th anniversary of the club with a shiny stadium and the city hall already destroyed the scoreboard last week to show that they have started with the project. It was the dream of team president Rocco Commisso, who even marked out land across the city to build a new stadium. The goal of the municipality of Florence is to renovate the existing one, with the aim of also hosting the Euro 2032 games in Artemio Franki. Despite the promises, there is still time before the film is cut and in Florence they are wondering where they will get the missing 55 million euros to complete the dream project on time. If they beat Maccabi Haifa and succeed in Europe, there is a possibility that she will have a few more millions in the pot to complete the move. And there is a situation that the future of the purples will be rosier.
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