Marked for John Stewart
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Jun 2043
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market15 Jun 2043
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad15 Jun 2043
Cher Ndour 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.
Market15 Jun 2043
Reggiana come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Fiorentina did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom15 Jun 2043
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Elia Bianco has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad15 Jun 2043
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luca Di Maggio, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Mar 2043
A knee injury of the worst kind for Gabriele Correnti
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fiorentina lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match9 Mar 2043
22 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad9 Mar 2043
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 124 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market9 Mar 2043
Manuel Conti hands in a written request
“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.
Player ratings9 Mar 2043
Up for the corner, and Federico Martini delivers — 7.80
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Federico Martini scored, was marked 7.80, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad9 Mar 2043
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Fiorentina may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad9 Mar 2043
Cher Ndour in a row with a teammate
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.
Market9 Mar 2043
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.
Match7 Mar 2043
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Fiorentina and Sampdoria, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Dec 2042
Gabriele Correnti damages knee ligaments — 100 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 100 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings29 Dec 2042
Age has not caught Tommaso Rubino yet — 7.84
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad29 Dec 2042
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.
Market29 Dec 2042
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad29 Dec 2042
The medical room confirms 63 days on the sidelines for Angelo Lorusso, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match27 Dec 2042
A 2‑0 win over Spezia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings29 Dec 2042
Nicolò Giuliani was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.38. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad29 Dec 2042
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” John Stewart commits to Fiorentina for another 5 years.
Player ratings29 Dec 2042
Defensive actions: 15. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Dec 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Gabriele Correnti
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fiorentina lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match10 Dec 2042
Pescara are out and Fiorentina go through, 2‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match13 Dec 2042
A 2-goal lead gone for Fiorentina
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Virtus Entella kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Fiorentina will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings15 Dec 2042
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.03, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match15 Dec 2042
12 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad15 Dec 2042
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings15 Dec 2042
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad15 Dec 2042
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad15 Dec 2042
Cher Ndour in a row with a teammate
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Jul 2042
Luca Di Maggio breaks a bone — 116 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 116 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market14 Jul 2042
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.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Cher Ndour 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.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. John Stewart is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Jul 2042
“The easiest signature of my career.” Luis Balbo Vieira and Fiorentina agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market14 Jul 2042
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Fiorentina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings11 Nov 2041
A defender's goal wins it for Fiorentina — 7.54
1 for Sascha Britschgi, marked 7.54, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad11 Nov 2041
Cher Ndour 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.
Squad11 Nov 2041
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match9 Nov 2041
1‑2 to Inter, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad11 Nov 2041
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luis Balbo Vieira and Fiorentina agree another 1 years.
Squad11 Nov 2041
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Fiorentina are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Loan watch11 Nov 2041
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Fiorentina, and 1 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
Market11 Nov 2041
The name of Niccolò Fortini keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Fiorentina say nothing, which says plenty.
Player ratings11 Nov 2041
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings16 Sep 2041
Tommaso Rubino, 34, rolls back the years — 7.96
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad16 Sep 2041
Cher Ndour 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.
Market16 Sep 2041
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.
Squad16 Sep 2041
A move Pietro Iannuzzi would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Pietro Iannuzzi is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match14 Sep 2041
Three points for Fiorentina, 3‑2 the final word against Empoli in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Boardroom16 Sep 2041
Napoli will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nicolò Calabrese has pre-agreed a move to Fiorentina, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Market16 Sep 2041
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Pietro Iannuzzi is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Squad16 Sep 2041
“The easiest signature of my career.” John Stewart and Fiorentina agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad16 Sep 2041
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.