Viola Station 47 is all about Fiorentina tactics with Marco Lai

No Mike this week, so it’s just Tito in this one, but the presence of our most tactically-savvy guest ever should more than make up for it. Marco Lai (also subscribe to his Substack, because it’s consistently fascinating) is a certified match analyst who’s quickly become one of VN’s favorite social media presences due to his fantastic analysis of Serie A matches. We were lucky enough to track him down for a conversation about Fiorentina’s approach under Italiano.

Our chat covered a range of topics, bouncing around from the abstract—the necessity of a striker who can press for a team that’s predicated on pressing, tactical dogmatism, the burden on the wingers to create—to the more concrete—reasonable transfer targets, how Fiorentina can get more out of the number 10 spot, and the asymmetrical use of fullbacks—and it’s safe to say that this is the most educational episodes we’ve ever done. Grazie mille, Marco, for the time, the knowledge, and the genuinely fun conversation.

As always, we had a blast making this. A huge thank you goes to Producer Mike_Hines for making us sound smarter than we are, and to Windchime Weather for our theme music (and check out Nate’s other project Shaylee). If the embedded podcast player isn’t present right above this paragraph, we implore you not to panic. Instead, you can check this episode out for free on Megaphone, Apple, Google, or Spotify. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. If you feel like it, give us a review on whatever platform you listen on. Forza Viola!