Fiorentina: A look back at goals galore and record scores

Fiorentina’s big win over Genoa on Monday night is the first time we have ever recorded a 6-0 home win in Serie A. What better time then, to look back at some of our other high scoring victories.

The record win for the Viola, in any competition is 8-0, and the first of those came back in 1935, on December 26th. In a Coppa Italia home tie with Sestrese, Fiorentina lined out with many reserve players against the Serie C side from Genoa. They still proved much too strong, although it did take them over half an hour to break the deadlock. Mario Mannelli opened the scoring, and scored his second later on, with both Italo Romagnoli and János Nehadoma netting a hat-trick.

Nehadoma, originally from Hungary, had previously played with Pistoiese, but was forced to leave Italy in 1927 because of fascist rules against foreign players. He then headed off to America where he lined out with Brooklyn Wanderers and Brooklyn Hakoah. Managing to return to Italy, again with Pistoiese, he succeeded in obtaining residency along with an Italian passport. He would sometimes need to go by the name of Giovanni Necadoma.

Also having to change their name because of the fascist regime, was Sestrese. When they again travelled to take on Fiorentina in the Coppa Italia in 1939, they were now known as Manlio Cavagnaro. Christmas in Florence was not kind to the visitors, as this time, in a game played on Christmas Eve, they again fell to a heavy defeat. The 7-1 score was thanks to four goals by Romano Penzo and a hat-trick from Piero Antona. Fiorentina went on to win this tournament the following June, their first ever major trophy.

Fiorentina also have an 8-0 victory in Serie A, which came during the 1941/42 season. On May 10th, 1942, a Modena side battling relegation were the victims, and after leading 3-0 at the break, Fiorentina went on to score another five after the interval. Renato Gei scored four of the eight goals, and Modena went on to finish bottom of the table and relegated to Serie B.

Renato Gei returned to Florence as manager of Brescia in February 1967. Fiorentina had a 2-0 lead at half-time, both goals coming from Mario Brugnera. After the break, they added five more goals, and in a 7-1 win, Kurt Hamrin bagged a hat-trick, in what would be his last season with Fiorentina. A former Viola legend, Enzo Robotti was in the Brescia side that day, a harsh return to Florence for both the defender, and manager.

Three years previously, in February 1964, Fiorentina recorded their biggest ever away win. At Bergamo, Kurt Hamrin scored a first-half hat-trick, and Fiorentina went in 3-0 up at the break against Atalanta. Hamrin went on to score a total of five goals that day, still the highest amount of goals any player has scored in an away game in Serie A. Fiorentina’s 7-1 win that day would also cost the Atalanta manager, Carlo Alberto Quario, his job.

There has been a much more recent 7-1 win, which came in the Coppa Italia in January 2019. On a Wednesday evening, Roma were the visitors to the Franchi, and the first half ended with Fiorentina 3-1 up, thanks to Federico Chiesa’s brace, and Luis Muriel. After the break, Fiorentina destroyed the visitors with another four goals, Chiesa getting his hat-trick, Giovanni Simeone netting twice and Marco Benassi the other scorer. Edin Džeko had been sent off when the score stood at 4-1. By the end of this quarter-final tie, the home crowd, bored of celebrating goal after goal, began their famous chant, ‘il pallone e’ quello giallo’.

7-1 has been a popular result for Fiorentina, if we include a Serie B win against Palermo in 1939, then it’s a total of eight games that we’ve won by that score. Another one came in September 1992, when on the third day of the 92/93 season, newly promoted Ancona arrived in Florence. This was the clubs first ever season in Serie A, and they were managed by former Fiorentina player, Vincenzo Guerini, the man who had taken them to that historic promotion the previous campaign. It was already looking like a tough task, as they had conceded seven goals in their opening two games, but when Lajos Détari gave them the lead at the Franchi, he surely couldn’t have imagined that they would go on to concede seven goals here.

Fiorentina needed an own goal to level the game, but after that they took complete control. 3-1 up at the break, with goals from Fabrizio Di Mauro and Brian Laudrup, they came out after the break to score four more. Laudrup and Di Mauro both netted their second of the game, with Francesco Baiano and Gianluca Luppi the other scorers. It’s strange to note that Gabriel Batistuta was in the side that day but didn’t get his name on the scoresheet. Certainly, Fiorentina legend Julinho will have enjoyed the goal feast as guest of honour that day at the stadium.

Not surprisingly, Ancona ended the season with relegation straight back to Serie B, more surprising was the fact that Fiorentina would be joining them. Despite riding high in the table over Christmas, by the start of 1993, Vittorio Cecchi Gori decided to replace manager Luigi Radice with Aldo Agroppi, and it all fell apart.

The win against Genoa on Monday night, was the only 6-0 home win we have had in Serie A, but Fiorentina have one other 6-0 victory at the Stadio Franchi. That came in a Coppa Italia game with Brescia at the end of November in 2000. This was the first leg of the quarter-final, and just like against Genoa, Fiorentina scored three goals in each half. The goals for Fatih Terim’s side came from Leandro Amaral and Enrico Chiesa with two each, Mauro Bressan and Manuel Rui Costa. Carlo Mazzone sent on Roberto Baggio for the second half, but it did nothing to stop Fiorentina. Brescia won the return leg 3-1, but Fiorentina marched on, and went on to lift the Coppa Italia. At that stage, Roberto Mancini was in charge, and this is still the last trophy that Fiorentina has won.

Another big win in the cup came in early September 1969. Bari were the visitors for this tie in the group stage, and they were up against a Fiorentina side fresh from their Scudetto win. The Viola went in at the break having scored four goals without reply, Mario Maraschi bagged the first two goals, with Amarildo and Claudio Merlo practically finishing off the game by the interval. Fiorentina went on to win 7-0, Maraschi, who had been the club’s top scorer in winning the league the previous season, wrapped up his hat-trick before Giancarlo De Sisti and Luciano Chiarugi scored the final two goals.

Fiorentina’s biggest win in Europe came in November 2007, in the group stages of the UEFA Cup. Swedish club, Elfsborg, travelled to Florence for this Thursday night game, and it looked all over after just five minutes. Goals from Martin Jorgensen and Christian Vieri had the Viola off to the perfect start. An error by Federico Balzaretti at the back, four minutes before the break, allowed Stefan Ishizaki to reopen the game. Cesare Prandelli’s side made no mistakes after the interval, with goals from Marco Donadel, Per Kroldrup, a second for Jorgensen, and a late goal from Samuel Di Carmine, wrapping up a 6-1 win. For Di Carmine, from Florence, this would be his only goal in Viola for the senior side, having made only three substitute appearances with the club.

This brings us to the final piece of our story, and it includes four games all from the 1958/59 season. That shouldn’t be too surprising, as this Fiorentina team are the highest scoring in our history. After the Scudetto win in 1956, Fiorentina would then finish as runners-up for the next four seasons, and out of those four, this 58/59 season is the one in which they came closest to winning it again.

On February 8th, 1959, Alessandria came to Florence with a side short many of its regulars. They came away on the wrong end of a 7-1 score line, in which Francisco Lojacono opened the scoring, and got his second late in the game. Sergio Cervato converted a penalty before Armando Segato made it 3-0 after half an hour. After the break the dynamic duo, Miguel Montuori and Kurt Hamrin scored Fiorentina’s final two goals. This was Hamrin’s first season at the club, and the Swedish forward would go on to become one of Fiorentina’s greatest legends.

That result wasn’t even Fiorentina’s biggest win that season, as the free-scoring team had scored 20 goals in three games just after Christmas. On December 28th, they hosted Genoa, and after just over a minute of play, Fiorentina were already leading through a goal from Giuseppe Chiappella. Gianfranco Petris and Montuori had the Viola 3-0 up at the break, but they weren’t finished yet. After the interval, Fiorentina added another two goals within the first five minutes, Guido Gratton and Hamrin the scorers. Montuori bagged his second, and after Genoa scored a consolation goal ten minutes from the end, Sergio Cervato the finished off the scoring for a 7-1 win.

The following game was another home tie, which saw Udinese arrive a week later. This time Fiorentina were 4-0 up at half-time, the goals coming from Petris, Lojacono, Montuori and Hamrin. Gratton made it 6-0 with his two second half goals, before Hamrin also netted his second for a 7-0 victory. The next game saw Fiorentina travel to a struggling Torino, who sat bottom of the table. They had just lost 3-0 at SPAL, but worse was to come, as the Fiorentina goal machine had no intention of stopping.

As stated at the beginning of this piece, our 6-0 win over Genoa is the first time we ever achieved that result at home in a Serie A game. We did, however, manage a 6-0 win away from home before, which is what happened at Torino, in that January of 1959. Having already netted 14 in two games, this was a team which could not stop scoring goals. For the third week in a row, there was no hope for the opposition, with Lojacono opening the scoring and Chiappella putting the sixth past Torino. In between, not surprisingly, both Montuori and Hamrin scored two goals each.

The 95 goals scored by Fiorentina that season wasn’t quite enough to win the Scudetto, as they finished three points behind Milan. The Viola scored 11 goals more than the title winners, and Milan conceded just three goals less, the two sides also won 20 games each. Unfortunately, Milan only lost two games all season, compared to Fiorentina’s five defeats, and two of those came at the hands of their title rivals.

La dura legge del gol

Of course, goals win games, but they don’t always win titles. In the last three Serie A campaigns, Atalanta were the highest scoring team in the league, but finished third in the table on all three occasions. In 2019/20, they scored 98 goals, but it’s still not as good as the 95 scored by Fiorentina in 58/59. Fiorentina did it with four less games in the season, which gave them an average of 2.79 goals per game, with Atalanta’s high scoring giving them an average of 2.58.

It’s certainly Fiorentina’s highest ever scoring season, both in terms of goals scored and average goals per game. There haven’t been too many other sides that have managed to better that record either, but it’s the Torino team of 1947/48 which will possibly never be beaten. This is the only Serie A season where teams had to play 40 games, and Torino scored an incredible 125 goals. That gives them an average of 3.12, in a season where they recorded the highest ever win in Serie A history, 10-0 against Alessandria, and also beat Fiorentina 5-0.

That impressive goal tally did give Torino the title, but just a couple of years later, Milan came close to matching them, but still finished second. At the end of the 1949/50 season, Milan had amassed 118 goals in 38 games, for an average of 3.1 per game, but had to settle for the runners-up spot behind Juventus. Not that the title winners didn’t have their shooting boots on, they scored 100 goals, their average of 2.63 per game, still not as good as Fiorentina’s of 1958/59. Milan, along with their city rivals Inter, did top Fiorentina’s average again the following season. This time it did give Milan the title, with both teams scoring 107 times in 38 games, for an average of 2.81.

As for Fiorentina, well we haven’t really come close to matching our own record. Even in our second Scudetto winning season, we didn’t need many goals to claim the title. With 38 goals in 30 games in the 1968/69 triumph, that’s a rather low average of 1.27 goals per game. Which brings us to the current team, who have been impressing us this season with plenty of goals. While their average at the moment, of 1.90 goals per game, may not seem impressive compared to some of the figures we’ve just been looking at, it is our best in over 20 years.

We need to go back to the 1997/98 season, when Gabriel Batistuta and Luis Oliveira were terrorising Serie A defences. Our 65 goals in 34 games, for an average of 1.91 per game, gave us a fifth-place finish and qualification for Europe, something which I think all Fiorentina fans would be happy with this season. Compared to last season, this campaign is already a success, when you think that we have scored 40 goals this season, with 17 games still to play, when we finished with just 47 goals at the end of last season. We are definitely well on course to top that dismal total, and with the Fiorentina of 2018/19 also ending the season with a dismal 47 goals, it’s no wonder we’ve all been excited by Vincenzo Italiano’s side in this campaign.

Although, if the last few seasons have lacked entertainment, cast your mind back to 2011/12. That season saw Siniša Mihajlović in charge, and later Delio Rossi, although he didn’t quite make it to the end of the season either. His altercation with Adem Ljajić brought the curtain down on his time on the Fiorentina bench (maybe that season wasn’t quite so dull after all). In that campaign, the team couldn’t even manage to score one goal per game, ending up with 37 goals in 38 matches. What a difference a year makes, and a change of manager, as Vincenzo Montella came in, and his side almost doubled that number the following season, with 72 goals scored, an average of 1.89 per game, second highest scorers in the league, and a fourth-place finish.

This would seem to be similar to the change since Italiano took over, and with eleven goals in our last two games, it’s very exciting to watch. We can’t even begin to compare them however, with that free scoring side of 58/59, unless of course they happen to bang in nine goals in their next game! For now, let’s enjoy a Fiorentina, which after so long, is giving us back the enthusiasm of watching our team.

È la dura legge del gol,

gli altri segneranno però,

che spettacolo quando giochiamo noi,

non molliamo mai.

Loro stanno chiusi ma,

cosa importa chi vincerà,

perché in fondo lo squadrone siamo noi,

Lo squadrone siamo noi!

(It’s the harsh rule of the goal, the others will score but, how amazing it is when we play, we never give in. They shut up shop, but what does it matter who wins, because in the end we are the greatest team, we are the greatest team!)