Fiorentina in Italy... Florence Nightingale or Florence Nightmare ?

dj jack said:
Ah, where to start! We've had so many components going wrong both on and off the pitch, starting a few years ago and the dramatically failing in the first half of this season. Now I feel we're starting a positive rebuild and results starting to improve. I'll try to summarise in the 2 parts:

On pitch: Disastrous early preparation with ex-manager Pioli - lack of fitness, pace and intensity, wrong formation, too many individuals not playing as team and half squad are fringe players not good enough, despite spending £90 million on squad. Compounded by much-criticized transfer Director, Prade, who often sold our best talents e.g. Kayode to Brentford, got rid of last seasons' better players including all our wingers (without replacing them!), pays over the odds or incoming loans of inferior players.

Pioli + Prade are sent packing but damage done and are bottom in November and big players like De Gea and Kean are underperforming compared to last season. New manager Vanoli comes in and does ok, trying to repair things - crucially fitness, formation and psychology as players looked shell-shocked from too many individual errors and not used to relegation battle. January turning point with arrival of Paratici (sporting director) from Spurs and signing wingers e.g. Solomon and confidence from our young talents e.g. Parisi, Ranieri + Fagioli.

Off pitch: American (Commisso) ownership has been a mixed bag and split opinion with fans;

Positives - financial security, reaching 3 consecutive Cup finals/Euro qualification, modern approach with off field activities e.g. shops, website, socials/media, built world-class £100 million training centre and tried to build brand new stadium (but rejected due to Italian bureaucracy!)

Negatives - perception that despite investing, the family could have spent more on players instead of infrastructure, arrogant comments implying fans are the problem, that we can't invest due to FFP and we should be grateful (when we seem to be overtaken by teams like Bologna, Atalanta and Como) and crucially a conveyor belt of inadequate players.

It's also been a terrible few years with tragedy for the club. Captain Astori's death, then the death of general manager Joe Barone two years ago, the collapse of Bove on pitch (who was sensational for us and we wish him well now at Watford) followed by the death of owner Commisso this season. His wife and son, Joseph Commisso have vowed to continue his work, but many fans want a change of ownership.

Tough times but always hopeful - Sorry for long post but a heck of a lot has happened!
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Out of interest, where do Fiorentina fans talk about your club on the internet? Wouldn't mind reading the equivalent to this place
 
iheartcpfc said:
Out of interest, where do Fiorentina fans talk about your club on the internet? Wouldn't mind reading the equivalent to this place
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There are a few websites apart from the official “acffiorentina.com”.

“Violanews.com” often has comments on the different topics, as does “ la viola.it”.

I often look at “davidguetta.it” who is a well known commentator, with interesting comments etc.
 
iheartcpfc said:
Out of interest, where do Fiorentina fans talk about your club on the internet? Wouldn't mind reading the equivalent to this place
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The main popular forum is laviola.it

Take comments with a pinch of salt though as like any open forum, it has its fair share of negative folk and rival fans/trolls commenting!
 
dj jack said:
!

BTW, apart from Millwall and Brighton (I know that story from a Palace ex-colleague) do you have other rivals?
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Charlton is historically the big one, but we rarely face each other these days so it doesn’t get played out.

I always say it’s Brighton, Millwall, and Charlton, in that order, that we don’t like. Seems to be quite a lot of people who don’t like West Ham on here, but they don’t get mentioned much by fans I speak to IRL. Slightly annoying their habit of poaching our transfer targets, but that’s about it as far as I’m concerned. I have no ill-feeling for them as a club.

Someone mentioned Wimbledon, I feel like there was animosity towards them when we were sharing Selhurst, but I dunno if it crosses over much to now. I actually have a soft-spot for them, to me it’s a local-ish club that’s never been a threat to us, and combined with the absolute s*** they’ve been put through by Winkleman and the franchise, I like to see them do well.

Honestly with the recent history with Don Marinakis, Notts Forest has become one for me personally.
 
SouthOxPalace said:
Hi Yes, although you are restricted to a 22500 capacity this season your crowds in the Conf league have been very low 7-11000 indicating a lack of interest from your fans. Bearing in mind I expect about 3/4000 Palace to want to travel to Florence how many tickets will the club give Palace, rumours abound it's usually only 500? Thanks.
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Club have stated an initial allocation of 1,000 has been given to Palace for the away leg, which is pish when we see how many Viola have attended so far.

However in the same communique, the club have said they are “in talks” regarding getting some more secured. Really hope the talks pay off, it should be easy enough to point out that ACF haven’t been selling out the conference league games.
 
TomH_CPFC said:
I bought my tickets for the Mostar home game on 3rd Feb, match was on the 26th.
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Yep all the home games I’ve been able to get further in advance, I think it’s been just the away games that have been close ran. And if I remember rightly the Kyiv / Lublin tickets, the only away I’ve managed to get, also came out earlier than that.
 
They will throw the kitchen sink at us early on, we’ll whether the early onslaught, catch them on the break and go 0-1 up. Game over, but they’ll make us sweat a bit when they get two late second half goals, but the game will then Peter out as we cruise to the semi finals
 
We are usally better away from home and if we cannot hang on to a 3 goal lead then we won't deserve to progress. Mind you, if that were to happen we can combine that with the humiliations at Macclesfield and at home to Burnley as one of the most infamous periods in our history.
 
Uphill said:
We are usally better away from home and if we cannot hang on to a 3 goal lead then we won't deserve to progress. Mind you, if that were to happen we can combine that with the humiliations at Macclesfield and at home to Burnley as one of the most infamous periods in our history.
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Remember Peterborough in the mullery era? 3-0 up, lost the 2nd leg 3-0 and out on pens
 
Uncle Neal said:
I got letter of the week writing into Jimmy Greaves in Shoot asking if he thought Alan Mullery was right in trying to fine the players for that performance!
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Brilliant!! Shoot, those were the days. I reckon noadesey should’ve fined himself for employing mullery(spit) in the first place
 
Afternoon all.

I have now booked flights to Florence, well Piza, for Thursday.

I unfortunately don't have match tickets, so was going to ask if anyone knew the chances of...

A. Getting tickets for the away end, yep, I know slim, if any.

B. Getting in the home end, and having to sit on my hands.

If neither of the above is possible I will look for a bar showing it on TV.

Just really want to soak up the Palace in Europe atmosphere.
 
Is there a bar where Palace fans are going to go in Florence? Remember someone mentioning the Tartan Jock or Red Garter as good options
 
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