Team Focus: Why Spurs Should be Wary of Happy Travellers Fiorentina

Tottenham had a visitor to their state-of-the-art Enfield training ground on Tuesday. Italy coach Antonio Conte toured the facilities and observed a session put on by Mauricio Pochettino with the first team. He’ll be in the stands for Thursday’s Europa League tie with Fiorentina and Sunday’s game against West Ham at White Hart Lane.

It must have been a great opportunity for both to pick each other’s brains. Pochettino’s high intensity pressing style is similar to Conte’s. They’re like-minded in their approach to the game and have a lot in common.

One imagines Pochettino also used the time to ask Conte of his experience of Fiorentina. His Juventus side eliminated them from the Europa League in the Round of 16 last season. After a 1-1 draw in Turin, a late Andrea Pirlo free-kick settled things in Florence, his away goal draining their opponents of belief. It clinched a 1-0 win and qualification to the next phase. No one, it must be said however, apart from maybe Jupp Heynckes and Bayern Munich made Conte suffer quite like Vincenzo Montella and Fiorentina did in his time in the Juventus dugout.

It is difficult to forget the strain on his face at the Artemio Franchi one October afternoon in 2013. Carlos Tevez and Paul Pogba had put Juventus 2-0 up and provocatively turned Gabriel Batistuta’s machine-gun celebration on the Curva Fiesole. It was a moment of hubris.

Like Milan in Istanbul, Juventus blacked out for quarter of an hour and by the time they snapped out of it, it was too late. They were losing 4-2. Giuseppe Rossi had scored a hat-trick, Joaquin had fired in another and Fiorentina were celebrating their first win over Juventus at home in almost 15 years. Presumably Conte will have told Pochettino let that be a lesson to you. If there’s one thing Tottenham can’t afford to do, it’s to be ‘Spursy’ against Fiorentina.

After all, Vincenzo Montella’s team give the impression they can beat anyone on their day. They came back from behind to edge a Real Madrid side featuring Xabi Alonso, Angel Di Maria, James Rodriguez and Cristiano Ronaldo in pre-season. It was a friendly, granted, but Fiorentina have established a knockout pedigree under Montella.

They reached the Coppa Italia final for the first time in a decade last season and are back in the semi-finals after vanquishing Roma at the Olimpico. Since Montella got the club back into Europe 18 months ago, the Aeroplanino, as he’s nicknamed, or Little Airplane, has got his men flying away from home in continental competition. Unbeaten in that period, their carry-on luggage has amounted to seven wins and two draws.

 

How apt as well that one of the so-called ‘sette sorelle’ or seven sisters of Italian football can extend that impressive record to 10 games down the Seven Sisters road this Thursday. It’s without doubt the toughest test of this run since last year’s trip to the Juventus Stadium. But Montella will be quietly confident.

Fiorentina booked their place in the knockouts at the earliest possible opportunity. Ten points from 12 meant they even qualified with a couple of games to spare. While the calibre of the group could be questioned - comprising Guingamp, Dinamo Minsk and PAOK - matters, it must be said, were complicated by a severe injury crisis. It became a bit of a joke.

For instance, at the unveiling of a new shirt sponsor, Montella turned to the mannequin, remarked how Fiorentina could really use a new signing and then delivered the punchline that this one was probably injured too. Rossi of course is the highest profile casualty, suffering yet another relapse of knee ligament damage on the eve of the campaign, but you’d be hard pressed to name a Fiorentina player who hasn’t spent time in the treatment room this season. Summer signings Micah Richards and Marko Marin didn’t make the impact they’d hoped for either.

Principal difference makers lost form too. Juan Cuadrado had a great World Cup with Colombia but only intermittently played to the standard of last season. Borja Valero even lost his place in the team for a while. And then there was Mario Gomez’s travails. His start to life in Florence has been like the Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy, the epic poem by the city’s most famous son, Dante Alighieri. He went 269 days without a goal, only ending his drought in late November.

January brought with it more potential issues. Goalkeeper Neto disappointed the club by opting not to sign a new contract despite all the faith they had put in him. He has been reluctantly dropped. Gomez was told to watch clips of his goals for Stuttgart, Bayern and Germany to remember how he scored them. As you can imagine, that didn’t go down too well. And then came the news that Chelsea were paying the buy-out clause to take Cuadrado, their star player, to the Bridge. Bizarrely, and this really is the mark of a highly promising coach indeed, Fiorentina have emerged stronger for it under Montella.

True, they’re not keeping clean sheets [11] as regularly as they did with Neto between the sticks, but their defence remains the third best in Serie A. It also scores goals too - 15 in all competitions - with Gonzalo Rodriguez, the centre-back, a real threat from set-pieces.

The Cuadrado sale suited all parties too. Chelsea procured the player they wanted. Cuadrado got his big move while Fiorentina obtained their asking price and Mohamed Salah on loan. The 22-year-old, who helped Basel knock Tottenham out of the Europa League the season before last, shone on his first start at the weekend. He set up Khouma Babacar, Fiorentina’s 21-year-old striker and top scorer, in a 3-1 win at Sassuolo. The Senegalese powerhouse also returned the favour by assisting Salah for his first goal in the purple shirt.

Even before the Cuadrado money cleared in Fiorentina’s bank they had already reinforced, bringing Alessandro Diamanti and Alberto Gilardino back from China for second spells at the club. Montella now has an embarrassment of riches, particularly in attack. “At this rate I’ll have to make substitutions in training,” he teased.

Gomez has also shown signs of getting back to being the player Fiorentina paid Bayern €15.5m for two summers ago. The five goals he scored in a fortnight between January 21 and February 3 were more than he managed in his entire first season.

Luckily Fiorentina haven’t been dependent on Super Mario pushing the Gomez button. No fewer than 17 different players have got on the scoresheet for them this season. That’s indicative of a great collective and good all-round play. Only Juventus [13.1] have created more chances per game than Fiorentina [13] this season. The Viola’s possession-based style – only two sides had more of the ball [60.5%] in the Europa League group stages, though Tottenham were top of the pile [61.5%] - is one of the reasons many believe they are the Serie A representative most suited to Europe.

Their ease on the ball and ability to control games through fluid passing as organised by renaissance architects Borja Valero and David Pizarro in midfield makes them a different proposition to other Italian clubs. “I like [Montella] because his football is very Spanish,” Pochettino told La Gazzetta dello Sport on Tuesday. “Fiorentina are a team that could play in La Liga and you wouldn’t even realise they were Italian.”

Undefeated in eight games in all competitions and within four points of Napoli in that third and final Champions League spot in Serie A, Fiorentina travel to London in the best form they’ve been in this season. No matter what Conte has told Pochettino, they’re ready to face Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane. Tottenham’s opponents are in the midst of a genuine purple patch.

Who will win out when Spurs host Fiorentina? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below