BatiGol Weekly 98: Melt your heart

If you’re a Fiorentina fan, this has not been a good week. We’re almost at the end of the transfer window and the team hasn’t brought anyone in (aside from 17-year-old striker Dušan Vlahović, who joined up this summer and is just now making his way to the Primavera). We’ve seen promising young stars Ianis Hagi and Jan Mlakar leave for peanuts as Pantaleo Corvino continues his paranoid de-Pradè-ization of the squad. Fiorentina sleepwalked through a monstrously embarrassing 1-4 loss to Hellas Verona that inspired the Curva Fiesole to exit the Franchi en masse during the match in protest. The fans are now angrier than ever with club leadership, from the Della Valles to Corvino to Cognini, and are calling for blood. The club will doubtless respond, as usual, with passive-aggressive sniping.

So what’s next? Sacking Stefano Pioli seems to be a popular solution, albeit a rather cosmetic one that won’t address the deeper issues that Fiorentina faces. Further posturing from Andrea and Diego about selling the club will probably lead to absolutely nothing, as per the beginning of this season. Another boardroom shakeup is hardly a guarantee of improvement; after all, the last one got the Viola in this mess.

This is the part where I usually try to inspire some confidence or make some sort of poignant or humorous insight, but I have nothing. This sucks. All of it. Just so much suck. As the importance of money from European qualification becomes the most important factor in deciding a club’s fate, the Viola are falling away from the top of the table and into a cycle in which they’ll spend the rest of eternity as a mediocrity, a nameless extra, an also-ran. This is the kind of adversity that is a furnace that consumes positivity rather than a crucible that creates strength through suffering. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit, but I doubt it.

Latest news

Young Polish midfielder Szymon Żurkowski could be the next transfer target.

Now in his fourth year in Florence, and in his fourth year of everybody expecting him to leave, we’re still not sure what the future holds for Milan Badelj.

However, Jan Mlakar was sold before we ever really got to see him.

Fiorentina, as we mentioned, got bofa from Hellas Verona. Relive it here.

Comment of the week

Credit to Hesanka for getting right to the heart of the matter.

That’s it for this week, folks. Look to your friends, but do not trust hope. It has forsaken these lands.