BatiGol Weekly 84: Epic

"Rage. Sing, goddess, Achilles’ rage," is how Homer (or whoever) started the Iliad. While we’ve certainly covered rage on this website before, I’m more interested in exploring the Viola epic this time around, because I don’t think we have one. There’s a history, sure, but it doesn’t contain sufficient mythology to count. Maybe this is what’s missing at Fiorentina.

I mean, you’ve certainly got your founding legend in the blending of CS Firenze and PG Libertas, symbolized by the washing of the shirts and the birth of a royal purple. You have the early struggles to establish standing in the wider world, the early success with the scudetto in 1956, the agony of the (awfully questionable) European Cup defeat to Real Madrid. You’ve got stagnation, then another peak with Antognoni, then the heroic journey of Gabriel Batistuta and subsequent destruction of the club, then the resurrection from the ashes, and on to where we’re at now.

But that’s all just history, and we need something better. We need legends, myths, stories that we tell as we huddle around a fire against the ever-encroaching darkness, desperate for the purple flames to beat it back for just long enough to finish the tale we’re listening to. So let’s gather around and spin some yarns until we can really weave ourselves the myth that we need to get through this boring stuff.

Latest news

Corvino is up to his old tricks again and looks to have the inside track on signing a very promising pair of youngsters from Partizan.

Meanwhile, Nenad Tomovic hit a motorcyclist on his way back from the Torino match, although it sounds like everyone’s okay.

Fiorentina traveled to Bergamo to play Atalanta and, besides some heroics from Ciprian Tatarusanu, nothing really happened. Check our match coverage if you don’t believe us.

Somewhat more exciting is the news that Cristiano Piccini has been tapped for a return to Florence, where he played for 13 years.

Must read

We here at Viola Nation are officially calling for Paulo Sousa to be sacked.

We here at Viola Nation are also officially calling for Paulo Sousa not to be sacked. We’ve really got this cognitive dissidence thing down pat.

Gonzalo’s almost certainly on his way out the door at the end of the season, and now there are rumors that Borja Valero could follow him next year.

We’re back to checking on the Viola lads out on loan. This time around, we’re looking at Serie A, Serie B, and the non-Italian leagues.

Comment of the week

Quattro Stelle brings a typically well-reasoned and calm tone to the Sousa debate, which is not our usual, but nice.

That’s it for this week, folks. Don’t neglect the classics.