D. Prade had characterized the Viola match against Lecce as a “matter of life or death,” but as the occasion drew near, he remembered football’s another possibility: you can simply resign. On Saturday, just over 24 hours before the scheduled kickoff, he left his role as technical director of the team by agreement.
The timing was a surprise, but not the decision. Fiorentina had made a shockingly poor start to the season, collecting only 4 points from their first 9 matches, and Pradè was insistent that he alone should shoulder the responsibility. “The club put €90m at my disposal to assemble the squad,” he remarked previously. “If anyone is accountable for the present crisis, it’s me.”
Those words were meant as a shield for the manager, S. Pioli. Maybe even Pradè’s steps this past few days symbolized one final effort at defense: not so much resigning as stepping in front of the metaphorical threat he saw flying toward them. A series of signs had been displayed around the city by ultras on Saturday, bearing such messages as “team, coach, club: you are the shame of this city.”
His resignation could not be enough to temper all this frustration. The sole genuine opportunity the manager had to save his job was to start winning matches, but instead his team were beaten again on the following day, falling 1-0 to Lecce. Their recently promoted rivals found the net early through Medon Berisha, then relied on some excellent saves by Wladimiro Falcone – who stopped Moise Kean more than once at the other end.
Fiorentina were awarded a penalty in the 84th minute of play, but then had it revoked by a controversial VAR check. The initial video clips indicated Luca Ranieri striking his own foot before tumbling inside the penalty area, but another view showed S. Pierotti’s leg appearing to catch his lower leg while applying pressure, leading to him to lose balance first.
Tensions spilled over. Ranieri was seen screaming into the presence of the match official, threatening that if the penalty wasn’t given he was about to make a scene. Still, the more intense fury seemed to come from the supporters. Inside the stadium they called for the coach’s sacking. Externally, a large crowd assembled at the gates reserved for footballers and officials for an planned demonstration featuring drums, megaphones and pyrotechnics.
Pioli has not yet been fired, although that news may come soon. 4 ties and 6 losses in ten fixtures is an unacceptable record for a club who ended up 6th the previous year. The coach’s stated goals, when he signed a 3-year deal to succeed R. Palladino this summer, were to guide the squad returning into the Europe’s top competition and claim titles. Not necessarily this year, but that was the planned path.
In what way did the situation unravel so quickly? Pioli’s appointment was met with cautious optimism, a manager who had been here before and secured a respectable upper-half position in 2017-18 before departing to win a championship with AC Milan. The director’s subsequent transfer activity made high targets appear achievable.
The club were previously on the rise. They finished in sixth place under Palladino last season, recording three-nil wins over both Inter and Juventus during the season, and reached the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League (admittedly a decline there, after ending as runners-up in both the previous two years).
In the birthplace of the cultural revival, whole careers were being remade. The striker enjoyed the best season of his professional life in the 2024-25 term, finishing as Italy’s top division’s second-top scorer on nineteen goals. R. Gosens was again the attacking wing-back we saw for Atalanta at the beginning of the decade, securing his initial Germany cap in nearly a year. David de Gea made save repeatedly.
Was the previous manager’s departure end all that progress? His departure in the summer came as a shock, the coach walking away from a newly-extended agreement even though not having a different position lined up. He offered some insight into his choice during an conversation with La Gazzetta dello Sport in September, stating: “I see football as a puzzle, all the pieces need to align for things to function. I’m satisfied of the work we did in Florence, but the conditions weren’t suitable to continue. Our visions and approach were too different.”
The team’s squad members had been as surprised as anyone by his departure, inundating him with heartfelt recorded clips that touched him to tears. Pioli, it would seem, has not been able to bond with them in the identical manner.
The recent additions signed by Pradè have likewise underperformed of hopes. Roberto Piccoli, the young striker signed from Cagliari for €25m, made his Italy debut this fall but is still not score for Fiorentina. So is Edin Dzeko, who arrived on a free transfer but became one of the club’s highest-paid players. The Switzerland national team player S. Sohm, purchased from Parma, has failed to complete a full game since the opening matchday.
There is no single reason for all these setbacks. The coach has not made major strategic adjustments, relying often on a variation of a three-four-two-one setup that his predecessor also used. Maybe the sheer quantity of new faces has created a degree of confusion – the coach personally said at one point in the pre-season that a bloated squad could create problems – but the core of the team stays intact. Yet displays have been completely different.
If anything, Pioli has been lucky to remain this far. Several believed the signal was on the wall more than a seven days ago, when his side seemed to be trailing 3-0 at their stadium to Bologna. But then a VAR decision overturned the third goal, and one of those magical footballing shift swings arrived to transform the outcome into an surprising 2-2 tie. De Gea afterwards confessed that he had thought at a moment that “we were going to lose 6-0”.
A saying that in a way captures the directionless feeling of this period: a club descending into chaos. Pradè attempted to do the honourable act by resigning, but his departure leaves a vacuum of guidance, with the {owner|
