Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad1 Mar 2027
At 21, Álex Jiménez is already the best thing here
An average of 7.03 in a first team he is several years too young for. Fiorentina have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Sassuolo go through and Fiorentina go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Juventus for Mateo Pellegrino was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.03, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Padova have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Add another name to the list: Carrarese have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Abdelhamid Sabiri. The answer from Fiorentina has not changed — yet.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Fiorentina asked and Hull City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Position 3, 48 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Successful dribbles: 28. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Álex Jiménez, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.95
A mark of 7.95 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to Venezia this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Fiorentina asked and Southampton said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer went to Shakhtar this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Two goals and a mark of 9.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Fiorentina had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Álex Jiménez did not need any: 8.39, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer went to Venezia this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Position 3, 39 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Álex Jiménez, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Padova had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Fiorentina did not stop to explain themselves.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Álex Jiménez did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Pote was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Dodo wants continental football; whether Fiorentina can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.