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Fiorentina 4 Verona 3

Stefano Ursolini watches a classic encounter

Its a cliche that Italian football is boring. It was once in the cynical days of catennaccio but now you have as much chance of watching an exciting game in the serie a as in the Premier league. More so if you follow Fiorentina. Last  night at the eccentric hour for us of 7 we played Hellas Verona , who are one position below us. And it was a seven goal thriller. Two of our favourite sons returned to the Renaissance  City. In the main stand was the greatest player ever, the legendary Batistuta who scored 2 goals every 3 games for la Viola. In the Verona shirt was Luca Toni, the old warhorse of a centre forward who wore the purple shirt with distinction . Verona and Fiorentina are twinned  so here was an atmosphere of fraternal warmth in the stadium where fans were not segregated. And we saw  a classic.

There were 4 goals in the first 15 minutes when Verona twice took the lead. In the second half the end to end play like a basketball  match continued when I Viola went 4-2 up. When Verona had a  man redcarded  we thought we were surely home but another Verona goal had us gnawing our finger nails.

Our stand out player was Valera Borja a Spaniard from  Villareal who netted twice . I have been in touch with Alan Tanner after the sacking of Martin Jol. I made the point that Fiorentina have been adapt in finding players in the market  who in every sense have added value to the team and we would not tolerate a  policy of buying old players as those  are all that we can afford. That is an excuse for inefficient scouting and poor team building.

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About Stefano Ursolini

The son of a leading Florentine art dealer, Stefano initially worked in the Uffizi Gallery. He went into journalism and soon became a popular stringer writing on Tuscan wines, art and football. Stefano lives with his partner Umberto in the Santa Croce quarter of Florence. A dedicated supporter of AC Fiorentina his elegant articles on the Viola as well as the Serie A have earned him an appreciative global audience. More Posts