Batigol Weekly 22: A brief interlude for destiny

This is a year of destiny. As the other teams in Serie A struggle to find their footing with new players and managers, Fiorentina shot out to an unexpected position at the top of the table. And that's why it's so frustrating when someone goes off the cuff, taking arms against a sea of purple, and by opposing ties them. Can't you see, you dummies? This is the year la Viola are going to win the Scudetto. You can't fight destiny, so stop trying. It's simply unbecoming.

But instead, Empoli (or Torino, or whichever team next assumes the role of pratfall) decides to serve as Laertes to Fiorentina's Hamlet, beating a more worthy adversary with the skulduggery of an offside goal and Paulo Sousa's massive squad rotation, and suddenly Fortinbras, an Inter-national opponent, marches in and takes the top spot unopposed. Perhaps Fiorentina isn't Hamlet (no Jorgenson or Kroldrup); maybe the goal should be avoiding Rosencrantz and Guildenstern territory. And who are we, that our occasional draw dropping points against a smaller team should mean so much? We are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and that is enough.

So even though time has stopped, so the single occurrence of a post-international break match against a lower-table side is being repeated over and over with the same result, it's okay. We could do something constructive--building a short, blunt human pyramid, anyone?--but it doesn't make much difference. This is the team of destiny, and nothing can stop it. Got it? No? How about this: A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense to not himself. Or just as mad. And here at Viola Nation, we do both. So there you have it: stark raving sane.

via GIPHY

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Here is everything you could have wanted to know about the Empoli match. Bleh.

In happier news, watch Khouma Babacar win Florence's Athlete of the Year award here.

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Want to catch up on all the Viola transfer rumors? Here you go.

Check out our recap of the first third of the season here. Spoiler alert: Fiorentina wins a lot.

And, if you believe in jinxes, don't read this Empoli fan's take on the derby here.

Little bit of a cop out here, but this goes out to pretty much the entire community on here.

To be completely honest, as soon as I saw this topic come up in the comment section, I began steeling myself to start deleting things and posting warnings to people and generally having to be bad cop, which I hate doing because it sucks. Instead, there followed a civil, rational, and compassionate discourse about terrorism, regionalism, and a lot of things that I don't think very many other sport-themed blogs in the world could touch without igniting a comment apocalypse. So take this as a thank you from all the writers and editors here for being as cool and smart and good as you are.

That's it for this week, folks. Stay tuned for a midweek match against Basel, and forza Viola.