How’s it going on guys and welcome back to the ABTFM blog. Today, we are back with another chapter of the Fiorentina Journey. In last chapter, we had our first game as the Fiorentina manager, and we have won our first game against Crotone comfortably. After 7 league games, we are now at the TOP OF THE TABLE! Yes, it is very crazy as this is only our first season with Fiorentina. Without further ado, let’s have a look at our incredible performance.
Top of The Table
We are the current leader of Serie A after 7 games. We have 16 points in hand, only 1 point ahead of the 2nd position. We also have 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 lose. In terms of the goal difference, we have 11, however it is not the highest in the league right now as Juventus and Inter Milan have 13. We score 16 goals right now, which is the 2nd highest in the league, 1 goal behind Atalanta. We concede 5 goals, which I think it is very good. Look at Juventus, they only concede 1 goal in 7 games. Interesting enough, we are the team that score against them and beat them. Although we are at the top of the table, but we did lose a game before. Napoli and Parma are the only two teams who haven’t lose a single game this season. In short, I am very happy to be at the top of the table, even though there is still a long way to go.
Fixture and Results
Now, looking at our fixture, these are the results of the 7 matches we played. As you all know, we beat Crotone 3-0 in the first league game this season. Then, we actually lose to Napoli 2-1 at home. It is quite disappointing, but I reckon we did well in that game to be fair. We then win 3 games in a row – 3-1 against Cittadella, the newly promoted team; battered Cagliari 6-1, and a 2-1 win against Genoa. Unfortunately, we can’t continue our winning streak against Lazio. It finished 0-0, a boring draw. However, we beat Juventus 1-0 in an away game. It was an amazing game and I enjoyed it very much.
vs Napoli
So, let’s start with the lost against Napoli. It was a pretty evenly match, to be fair. Both teams had 12 shots in total. We had more shots on target, but we did not take our chances nicely. Napoli had more possession than us, with 58%, 2 clear cut chances and 1 half chance. Looking at the player ratings, Napoli’s defence was exceptional. The back four, the keeper and the defensive midfielder had a very great game against us, with an average rating of 7. On the other hand, at our side, only Weston McKennie and Nicola Tagliaferri’s rating was more than 7.
Now, let’s talk about the goals. The first goal came from Napoli’s winger Angel Correa in the 28th minute. Faouzi Ghoulam ran down the left flank without anyone marking him. He hit a cross at the byline, Cristiano Biraghi failed to intercept the ball and Angel Correa put the ball into the net at the far post. We then equalised the scoreline at the start of the second half in the 46th minute. Riccardo Saponara intercepted a pass and pushed forward. Allan fouled Saponara but advantage played by the referee after Matteo Politano picked up the ball. The Italian winger found Nicola Tagliaferri in the box. The wonderkid struck a powerful shot at the goal and made it 1-1. The last goal happened at the 88th minute. Once again, Faouzi Gholam made a cross into the box. Our left back, Luca Ranieri did not notice Angel Correa, who then hit a volley and scored a beautiful game winning goal.
This match clearly shows how poor our defending is at the left side. Both Biraghi and Ranieri were totally exposed and Angel Correa took the advantage and scored two goals against us. Another thing that I have noticed is the lack of defensive support at the right flank. Thilo Kehrer was doing all the defending job himself and Matteo Politano was just staying up front and waiting for the ball. As a result, I made some adjustments on the tactics itself. First, I changed the left back’s role from Wingback on Attack, to Fullback on Attack. Fullback usually stays deeper than Wingback, and they usually contribute more on the defending. Second, I changed Politano’s role to Inverted Winger on Support who will also stay deeper at the flank. Third, I switched the Box to Box Midfielder to the right and Mezzala to the left. The reason behind this is to balance the attacking movement and defending positioning at the both flanks.
vs Cagliari
After beating Cittadella 3-1, I can see the tactics is clearly working. I decided to stick with this adjusted tactics next game against Cagliari. Surprisingly, we won the game with 6 goals. We had a total of 28 shots, 13 on target, 4 clear cut chances and 1 half chance. The average rating of our team was 8.31. Beside the goalkeeper, even the lowest rated outfield player had a 7.8.
Matteo Politano scored his first ever goal for Fiorentina at the 4th minute with a volley after receiving a low cross from Nicola Tagliaferri. Dusan Vlahovic scored the second goal 1 minute after Politano’s goal. Riccardo Saponara scored a penalty in the 15th minute. Weston McKennie also scored his first goal for the club at the 32nd minute with a long range effort, which also then became the second runner-up of Serie A Goal of the Month. Nicola Tagliaferri scored the fifth goal for Fiorentina, also his fifth goal of the season in the 37th minute. Cagliari’s striker Leonardo Pavoletti scored a consolation goal before the half time whistle. The last goal came from Riccardo Saponara, who curled his shot to the near post at the edge of the box in the 57th minute.
I was extremely happy with our performance in this game. I was also very sure with the adjustments that I made for the tactics because we have won 2 games in a row, also scoring 9 goals in 2 games.
vs Lazio
However, the next game against Lazio was a disappointment. Lazio was playing a similar formation as Cagliari, but their players were much better than Cagliari. We had more shots in total, more shots on target and more clear cut chances according to the match stats. Both sides failed to score a single goal and I would say the match was more like a fight rather than football.
Lazio picked up 5 yellow cards in the game and most of them were defensive players. I was extremely furious so I went a little bit emotional. I changed from Stay On Feet to Get Stuck In at the 70th minute, and also changing the mentality to Very Attacking. Yet, we still fail to score a goal at the end and the match finished 0-0. On the bright side, I can see our tactics is still working pretty good. There were a few chances and beautiful plays in the match, and I was getting more and more confident with our tactics. Although 0-0 was not what I wanted, I guess I would still take the draw rather than a lost.
vs Juventus
Next up, it was a big game against Juventus, the defending Champion. Looking at the match stats, Juventus was a better team. However, shockingly, Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t at his best on that day. He was rated a 6.5 after the game, lowest rated player in Juventus starting 11. On the other hand, our goalkeeper Bartlomiej Dragowski was playing like Prime Iker Casillas. He had 12 shots saved, including 2 one-on-ones against Cristiano Ronaldo, and 1 assist, which arguably the most important assist in this season so far. Juventus’ Axel Witsel had a clumsy challenge on Dusan Vlahovic at the 22nd minute, which then being sent off by the referee, leaving Juventus with 10 men on the pitch.
The only goal was scored by Nicola Tagliaferri at the 7th minute. Juventus was given a free kick at the 6th minute. Miralem Pjanic aimed his cross at the far post, but it was too easy for Dragowski to handle it. Dragowski saw Nicola Tagliaferri was unmarked at the left flank and played an incredible long ball forward. Juventus’ defender Danilo tried to take down the 17 years old wonderkid but he failed. Tagliaferri ran forward with pace and scored an absolute banger!
I was delighted beating the defending champion, especially it was an away game. The lads had given me 100% for sure and I can’t wait to see more incredible performance from them. I was feeling like Louis Van Gaal at the moment when Tagliaferri scored. I wanted to give him a high five just like Van Gaal did to van Persie in 2014 World Cup. That’s how happy I was at the moment.
Player Stats
After the win against Juventus, I went to the squad and had a look at the top performers so far base on the average ratings. Undoubtedly, Nicola Tagliaferri is the best performer so far, having 6 goals and 2 assists in 8 appearances. Riccardo Saponara comes after the youngster with 3 goals and 3 assists in 8 appearances. The two fullbacks Cristiano Biraghi and Thilo Kehrer come in at the third and fourth position, with 6 assists combined. New signing Matteo Politano is the fifth top performer in the squad, with 2 goals and 2 assists in 7 appearances.
Dusan Vlahovic isn’t in the top 5 unfortunately, however, he is so far the 4th highest goal scorer in the league, scoring 4 goals in 7 appearances. Nicola Tagliaferri who has 1 more goal is sitting at the 3rd position. Only Cristiano Ronaldo and Patrik Schick have scored more goals than Tagliaferri and Vlahovic.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I am really liking this team a lot right now. I am already very excited since the first day with Fiorentina, but now I am even more excited to see how far we can go in this season. I am hoping I can unleash the potential of this club and bring them to a higher level in the future. Next game, we are going up against another Italian giant Inter Milan. Diego Simeone is the current manager, who is also having his first season in Serie A just like us. Can we beat Inter Milan and continue sitting at the top of the table? I guess we will have to find out in the next chapter!
I hope you guys enjoy reading the Fiorentina Journey and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @abt_fm to join the discussion of football. Also, do check out my other series in my blog like the Tactics Recreation, where I try to replicate a tactics from a team and put it into another team, stimulating the season and see what the result is. Once again, thank you for your support and I will see you guys in the next chapter. Take care!
ABT Football Manager 