Another interesting weekend for Fiorentina. Interesting, but I am ready to leave all this transfer news and gossip in the dust and actually enjoy some meaningful football. Until we get that, however, here is the latest round of “news” around the club.
• First, and perhaps most importantly, Fiorentina played another pre-season match this weekend, beating Figline 1-0. The lone goal was scored by my main man and bicycle-kick specialist Pablo Osvaldo, who has apparently looked solid the whole pre-season, as well as at the U-21 tournament in Toulon. Again, we shouldn’t go nuts over a pre-season exhibition match, but all observers say the team is playing well.
• Roma Coach Mr. Clean Spalletti continues to whine over the fact that Fiorentina would not sell his club Mutu. That’s just tedious. The Viola’s owner, Andrea Della Valle, insists that no deal was ever done. Guess whose version I believe?
• Here’s Suzy Campanale offering her usual slapped-together, poorly thought-out crap about how it’s a shame that Mutu didn’t go to Roma. Aside from the fact that she claims clubs should work in a dishonest fashion and openly seems to long for a return of the days of Lucciano Moggi, what’s most offensive about this is that she seems to understand the facts of the story and chooses to ignore them. Essentially, Fiorentina as a club said they would consider Roma’s offer. They did so, and then rejected it. Fiorentina thus keep their best outfield player. How can you call the club “losers” in that context? Oh, well, Suzy. I look forward to reading your monthly column in Calcio Italia that you probably threw together in five minutes when it arrives on my doorstep three months after it is published in England.
• Here are a couple of articles on Stevan Jovetic which can be found here and here. Both are pretty interesting, and are getting me fired up for the Stevan Jovetic era in Florence. I hope the kid lives up to the hype.
• Finally, I wanted to let you all know Fiorentina has a fancy new website up, which you can find at http://it.violachannel.tv/. Its pretty good stuff, especially if you can read Italian better than I can. I encourage you all to check it out.
That’s all for now; hope you are all well. Don’t forget, we get Barca at the Artemio Franchi on Wednesday. I’ll be back before then for a slapped-together, Suzy Campanale-style half-assed preview.