If you've never set foot in the Stadio Artemio Franchi or spent time among the club's supporters, it’s easy to be dismissive of Fiorentina. Because of the many words written on the subject, it's also very easy to dismiss their rivalry with Juventus as one based upon pettiness and jealousy towards the peninsula's most successful side. Yet unlike many fan bases around Italy, those who love La Viola do not look at Turin’s grand Old Lady and wish they were winning the Scudetto every year or playing in Champions League finals.
Instead, for Florentines, this grudge match – the latest installment of which takes place on Friday evening – is, like much of what gets them fired up, is instead a matter of local pride. By now, anyone with even a passing interest will have read countless articles on the 1982 Scudetto controversy, the sale of Roberto Baggio a few years later and the riots sparked by that transfer.
Yes, the first of those incidents certainly became the bedrock upon which this rivalry is built, instilling a bitterness and genuine hatred of Juve among Fiorentina supporters. But, despite having watched il Divine Codino then spend a few seasons carrying their team to the brink of success, it wasn’t seeing Baggio in Bianconero that added fuel to the fire, but instead the actions of their own owners in that deal.
The talented and widely loved Baggio joined the Tuscan club from Vicenza, Fiorentina investing in him despite a shattered right knee. In his final season before joining them, the player tore his ACL and ruptured his meniscus, then suffered a repeat of the injury in his first season in Florence. It was almost two years before they began to regularly see him on the field, his presence transforming them from relegation candidates into title contenders almost instantly.
Yet by the summer of 1990, Fiorentina’s owner Flavio Pontello was experiencing huge financial difficulties, a problem which directly led to the sale of Baggio. Against his own wishes he once again saved the Viola by accepting the move, endearing himself even further by refusing to take a penalty against them a year later. Pulling on a purple scarf as he left the field in tears, he simply could not have done more for the club he always held dearest, a bond that remained intact long after he departed.
That stands in stark contrast to events this summer when Federico Bernardeschi made the same move. While clearly skilful and talented, the 23-year-old remains wholly unproven and very immature, he certainly is no Baggio and has yet to fully convince Juve boss Max Allegri. He also never truly won the hearts of Viola fans who were able to admire his breathtaking feats of goal scoring brilliance but also routinely saw his petulant pouting. Unwilling to give his all for the cause, Fiorentina supporters are not angry with him for leaving, they are furious that a man who invoked the name of Giancarlo Antognoni when stating his desire to “spend my entire career here” last September seemingly changed his mind in less than a year.
Bernardeschi was part of a mass exodus ahead of the current campaign, fans watching on helplessly as club captain Gonzalo Rodriguez, beloved playmaker Borja Valero and nine other players all left for pastures new. It marked the end of an era that had seen Vincenzo Montella bring them to the brink of Champions League qualification, then Paulo Sousa — with an improved squad — fail to improve their league position. Worse still, the Portuguese Coach failed to understand what was actually important to those who truly support this team; pride, hard work and a sense of belonging.
With their city overrun by foreign visitors wishing to see the city’s many artistic treasures, the football team is to many people the only thing left untainted. Rather than bemoan their luck at so many good quality players being sold, Fiorentina fans hoped those who arrived in their place would simply grasp that fact. As you would expect with a hastily assembled young team, results have been mixed but fans have largely taken the defeats in their stride, at least until a heavy loss to Hellas Verona last month.
A humiliating 4-1 home defeat to a team battling relegation caused a mass walkout by the club’s hardcore supporters, something which they hadn’t felt compelled to do since 2011. However, as The Sportsman’s own Chloe Beresford – one of very few foreign fans to be welcomed onto the Curva Fiesole due to her family’s connection to the club – explains, their anger was not about one match or even this one season.
“Frustration towards the club’s owners is long-standing in Florence. While the Della Valle brothers rescued Fiorentina from bankruptcy back in 2002, since then the billionaire owners have held the club back, refusing to fully commit to a team that has so much potential thanks to a fan base who give everything to their side. This refusal to either invest or step aside has led to a state of inertia – a club merely treading water – and this is something that the fans simply cannot accept.
“Repression is a word often used by these supporters and it is something they encounter in many aspects of their everyday lives. The pride in their truly historic city is muzzled by an invasion of foreign tourists, they often suffer police injustice and their wages are kept low by extremely high taxes. The one thing that faithfully represents their feelings (their football team) is kept at a level of unnecessary mediocrity.
“Then we see Juventus, a team that represent everything that Florentines hate about modern football. Their clean and corporate image is something that would never work in the Tuscan city, even if it meant winning trophies. Giancarlo Antognoni described it as ‘THE match’ earlier this week, and having witnessed a rare win over Juve in person at the Franchi last January, I can say with absolute certainty this is true.”
“It’s not really about Roberto Baggio, the “stolen Scudetto”, or Federico Bernardeschi. It’s about achieving something tangible against all the odds, triumphing against adversity and taking back something from a side that took something from them. I’ll never forget the scenes I witnessed under the stand on that cold January night, as this was more than an underdog victory, it was a win that meant everything to my friends who had suffered so much. ”
All of this shows that Fiorentina’s rivalry with Juventus and indeed the very deeply felt connection between fans and their beloved Viola is not laced with jealousy or a desire to be the best. Instead it is a need to simply be proud, a pride in their town, their team and their colours that ignores every external pressure and for that reason, it doesn’t really matter who is lining up on the opposite side of the pitch.
It’s not something you can learn from a distance or sitting at home watching on television, but instead an intrinsic knowledge that seeps from one generation of Fiorentina fans to the next, one that engulfs the Tuscan capital on nights like tonight.
