Fiorentina file

A month or so ago I was contacted by John Pargiter. It sounds treacherous but I was more optimistic of Juventus’ chances in the Champions League than ours in the Europa League. He duly backed Juve each way at 20-1 which is looking good as they defend a 2-1 lead in Madrid next Wednesday.

Last night la Viola crashed 3-0 to Seville. Fiorentina had two excellent chances missed by Fernandez and Salah and a good penalty  shout but our defence was not of Juve standard. Seville, the defending champions, are an excellent team and the game did stand comparison to the two fine semi finals in the Champions League. We can be proud of a campaign in which we beat Tottenham and Dynamo Kiev but we simply did not have the squad resources to compete in serie a, the Coppa and Europa League. We ended up missing out on all three.

In the years I have followed Fiorentina we find it hard to get beyond the semi-finals. I remember in 1999 when we, in the old Cup Winners Cup, held Barcelona 1-1 at the Nou Camp but imploded in Florence when Ronaldo did the damage. This season we won the away leg of the Coppa  against Juve but still lost the tie in the home game. Now we fall at Seville. Our fans are as ever divided on whether manager Montella should be held responsible for this failure.  Inter seem to want him. I for one will be sad to see him go.