D. Prade had described the Viola match against their opponents as a “matter of life or death,” but as the event drew near, he recalled football’s third possibility: you can simply step aside. On Saturday, just over 24 hours prior to the planned match, he left his role as sporting director of the team by mutual consent.
The timing was unexpected, yet not the move itself. The Florence-based club had made a shockingly disappointing beginning to the campaign, earning only 4 points from their first 9 games, and Pradè was insistent that he personally should shoulder the responsibility. “The club put 90 million euros at my availability to build the squad,” he remarked last month. “If someone is accountable for the present crisis, it’s me.”
Those comments were meant as a protection for the coach, Stefano Pioli. Maybe even Pradè’s steps this weekend represented one last attempt at protection: not so much resigning as blocking the metaphorical bullet he envisioned flying toward them. A series of banners had been displayed around Florence by ultras on that day, bearing such messages as “squad, coach, club: you are the shame of this town.”
Pradè’s resignation could not suffice to temper all this anger. The sole genuine chance Pioli had to save his job was to start winning matches, but instead his team were defeated once more on Sunday, losing 1-0 to Lecce. Their recently promoted opponents scored quickly through M. Berisha, then relied on some superb goalkeeping by Wladimiro Falcone – who stopped Moise Kean more than once at the other end.
Fiorentina were given a spot-kick in the 84th minute, only to have it taken away by a contentious VAR review. The first video clips showed Luca Ranieri kicking his own heel before falling inside the box, but a different angle revealed S. Pierotti’s knee seeming to catch his lower leg while applying pressure, leading to him to stumble first.
Emotions spilled over. The defender was observed shouting into the face of the match official, threatening that if the foul was not awarded he was about to cause trouble. Nevertheless, the more intense fury seemed to belong to the supporters. Inside the stadium they chanted for Pioli’s sacking. Outside, a large crowd gathered at the gates used by footballers and officials for an organised protest including drums, megaphones and pyrotechnics.
Pioli has not yet been sacked, though that announcement may come imminently. Four draws and 6 losses in 10 games is an unacceptable record for a club who ended up sixth last season. The manager’s own ambitions, when he signed a three-year deal to replace R. Palladino this off-season, were to guide the team back into the Europe’s top competition and claim titles. Not specifically this year, but that was the planned direction.
In what way did things deteriorate so fast? Pioli’s return was met with measured optimism, a coach who had been here before and achieved a creditable upper-half finish in 2017-18 before leaving to win a championship with Milan. Pradè’s subsequent transfer activity made high targets seem achievable.
Fiorentina were already on the rise. They ended in sixth place under Palladino last season, recording 3-0 wins over both Inter and Juventus FC during the season, and reached the last four of the Europa Conference League (admittedly a step backwards there, after ending as finalists in both the previous seasons).
In the birthplace of the Renaissance, whole careers were being revitalized. The striker experienced the best season of his career in 2024-25, ending as Italy’s top division’s second-highest goal-getter on nineteen strikes. R. Gosens was once more the marauding wing-back we saw for his former club at the start of the period, earning his first German national team appearance in nearly a year. David De Gea made save after save.
Was Palladino’s departure end all that progress? His exit in the off-season came as a shock, the manager leaving from a recently renewed agreement despite not having a different job offer lined up. He provided some explanation into his choice during an interview with a sports newspaper in the autumn, saying: “I see football as a challenge, all the pieces need to align for things to function. I’m satisfied of the effort we did in Florence, but the circumstances weren’t suitable to proceed. Our ideas and approach were too different.”
Fiorentina’s squad members had been as wrongfooted as everyone by his departure, flooding him with heartfelt video messages that moved him to emotion. The new manager, it would appear, has failed to bond with them in the same manner.
The recent faces signed by the former director have also fallen short of expectations. Roberto Piccoli, the promising forward signed from Cagliari for 25 million euros, made his national team first appearance this fall but is yet to find the net for Fiorentina. So is E. Dzeko, who arrived on a free transfer but became one of the club’s highest-paid players. The Swiss international S. Sohm, bought from Parma Calcio, has failed to complete a 90 minutes since the first matchday.
There is not one explanation for all these setbacks. The coach has not made drastic tactical changes, depending frequently on a variation of a 3-4-2-1 setup that his predecessor employed as well. Perhaps the large quantity of recent faces has created a degree of disruption – the coach personally remarked at a certain stage in the pre-season that a bloated squad could create issues – but the core of the side remains. Yet displays have been unrecognisable.
If anything else, the manager has been lucky to last this far. Several believed the writing was on the wall just over a week ago, when his side seemed to be losing 3-0 at their stadium to Bologna. But then a VAR ruling overturned the third goal, and one of those unexpected footballing shift changes occurred to transform the result into an surprising 2-2 tie. The goalkeeper afterwards confessed that he had believed at one point that “we were going to lose 6-0”.
A saying that somehow captures the rudderless feeling of this moment: a club descending into chaos. Pradè attempted to do the honourable act by resigning, but his exit leaves a vacuum of guidance, with the {owner|
