Daniele Pradè had labeled the Fiorentina match against Lecce as a “question of life or death,” but as the event approached, he remembered football’s another option: one can always step aside. On the weekend, just over 24 hours before the scheduled kickoff, he left his position as sporting director of the team by mutual consent.
The decision timing was unexpected, but not the move itself. Fiorentina had made a shockingly disappointing beginning to the season, gathering only four points from their first nine matches, and Pradè was insistent that he personally should bear the blame. “The management put 90 million euros at my availability to assemble the squad,” he remarked last month. “If anyone is accountable for the present situation, it’s me.”
Those words were meant as a protection for the coach, S. Pioli. Maybe even his steps this weekend symbolized one final attempt at defense: not so much resigning as blocking the figurative threat he saw heading toward them. A number of signs had been displayed around Florence by hardcore fans on that day, displaying such statements as “squad, manager, club: you are the disgrace of this city.”
His self-sacrifice could not suffice to temper all this frustration. The only genuine opportunity Pioli had to keep his job was to start winning games, but instead his side were beaten once more on the following day, losing 1-0 to Lecce. Their newly-promoted rivals found the net quickly through Medon Berisha, then leaned on some superb saves by W. Falcone – who denied Moise Kean repeatedly at the opposite goal.
Fiorentina were awarded a penalty in the 84th minute of play, but then had it taken away by a contentious VAR check. The initial video clips indicated L. Ranieri striking his own heel before falling inside the box, but a different angle revealed Santiago Pierotti’s leg appearing to contact his calf while challenging, causing him to stumble initially.
Emotions spilled over. The defender was seen screaming into the face of the fourth official, threatening that if the foul was not awarded he was about to cause trouble. Nevertheless, the greater rage seemed to belong to the fans. Within the arena they chanted for the coach’s sacking. Outside, thousands assembled at the exits used by footballers and officials for an planned protest featuring drums, loudspeakers and pyrotechnics.
Pioli has still not been fired, although that announcement may arrive soon. Four ties and six defeats in ten fixtures is an poor record for a club who ended up 6th last season. The coach’s own ambitions, when he signed a 3-year contract to succeed Raffaele Palladino this off-season, were to get the squad back into the Europe’s top competition and win trophies. Not necessarily this season, but that was the intended path.
How did things unravel so quickly? Pioli’s return was met with measured optimism, a manager who had been here before and achieved a creditable top-half position in 2017-18 before departing to win a league title with Milan. The director’s following transfer campaign made high targets seem plausible.
The club were already upwardly mobile. They ended in sixth place under the former coach last season, recording three-nil wins over both Inter and Juventus during the season, and advanced to the last four of the European competition (admittedly a step backwards there, after finishing as runners-up in both the prior two years).
In the birthplace of the cultural revival, whole professional paths were being revitalized. The striker experienced the best season of his career in 2024-25, ending as Serie A’s second-highest scorer on 19 strikes. Robin Gosens was once more the marauding wing-back we saw for his former club at the start of the decade, earning his first German national team cap in nearly a twelve months. David de Gea made stop after save.
Was the previous manager’s departure halt all that advancement? His exit in the summer came as a shock, the manager walking away from a newly-extended contract despite not having a different position waiting. He offered some explanation into his choice during an interview with a sports newspaper in the autumn, saying: “I see football as a puzzle, all the elements need to align for things to function. I’m satisfied of the effort we did in the city, but the conditions weren’t right to continue. Our ideas and approach were too far apart.”
Fiorentina’s players had been as wrongfooted as anyone by his departure, inundating him with heartfelt recorded clips that moved him to tears. Pioli, it would seem, has not been able to connect with them in the same way.
The new faces brought in by the former director have also underperformed of expectations. Roberto Piccoli, the young forward acquired from his former club for €25m, made his Italy first appearance this autumn but is still not score for Fiorentina. So is Edin Dzeko, who arrived on a no-fee deal but ended up as one of the team’s highest-paid players. The Switzerland international Simon Sohm, bought from Parma Calcio, has failed to complete a full game since the first weekend.
There is not one explanation for all these failures. The coach has avoided drastic strategic changes, depending often on a variation of a 3-4-2-1 formation that Palladino also used. Maybe the sheer number of new faces has caused a degree of confusion – the manager himself remarked at a certain stage in the summer that a bloated roster could cause issues – but the key members of the team stays intact. However displays have been completely different.
If anything, Pioli has been lucky to remain this far. Many thought the signal was on the evident just over a seven days ago, when his team appeared to be losing 3-0 at their stadium to the visitors. But then a VAR ruling overturned the third score, and one of those magical footballing momentum swings occurred to turn the result into an surprising 2-2 tie. De Gea afterwards admitted that he had thought at one point that “we were going to lose 6-0”.
A saying that somehow captures the rudderless sense of this period: a club spinning out of control. Pradè sought to do the honourable act by resigning, but his exit leaves a vacuum of leadership, with the {owner|
