Is Everton the Bizarro Fiorentina?
By: Ted | March 4th, 2008
Since I am finally calming down after the Juventus win, I am able to rationally turn my mind to the first leg of the exciting UEFA Cup tie taking place this Thursday between Fiorentina and Everton. I am looking forward to the match; I don’t really know much about Everton (I only watch the Prem occasionally) but they strike me as a good, attacking, fun team. It should be an enjoyable game.
But as I looked over this strange club, and considered it in light of my own team, I noticed a number of startling similarities. To wit:
• Both teams currently sit in 4th place in two of the greatest, most competitive leagues in Europe. Fourth place in each league qualifies the team for the Champion’s League.
• Both teams are in 4th at the expense of a far richer, more famous rival. (Liverpool and AC Milan).
• Fiorentina leads the 5th place team by four points, while Everton’s lead is three points.
• Both teams have had their share of struggles against the traditional “big four” in their respective leagues: Fiorentina has only losses and draws vs. the big guys (excepting the Juventus win on Sunday) while Everton has only one point from all the games vs. their big four.
• Both teams are coming off great wins on Sunday: Fiorentina beat Juventus in Turin for the first time in twenty years, while Everton thumped Pompey.
• Both clubs are led by youngish, intelligent coaches who buy into the youth system. (Although here I would say that Prandelli is a genius, while Moyes is simply a good coach.)
• Both clubs sold off budding young superstars who became footballing icons to their respective nations (Roberto Baggio and Wayne Rooney).
• Finally, Florence was the cradle of the Renaissance, and the thus the birthplace of all that is decent and beautiful about western society. Liverpool, meanwhile, was the cradle of the Beatles, the birthplace of everything that is decent and beautiful in pop music. Paul McCartney, need I say, is an Everton fan…
Anyway, these are just a few of the coincidences that struck me. Please feel free to leave your own in the comments section. I will be back tomorrow with a proper preview of the big match.
Category: Team News
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Comments
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I didn’t realize Everton was in fourth. Should be a great match.
Posted from
United States
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Ted - this was awesome. I was going to bring it up but you beat me to it. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the “Fox Football Phone In” show on FSC (and I don’t watch it regularly so I can’t remember the name of the hosts), but they brought this up in a dismissive manner before the AC Milan game recently. It was something to the effect of “Fiorentina are the Everton of Serie A - a nice young team that never wins against the big 4 sides.”
Plus, on the Guardian Football Weekly podcast yesterday James Richardson and crew were discussing the Italian media reports as to whether Fiorentina were the smallest of the big teams or the biggest of the small teams.
I guess my point in bringing all of these things up is that there is a real barrier created by the big money involved at the top of the major European leagues (obviously this is not earth shattering breaking news). However, the optimist in me believes that teams like Fiorentina, Everton, Tottenham, Atletico Madrid, Espanyol, or Lazio can break into this with good young players, superior management, intelligent transfer operations/negotiations and a solid multi-year plan in place. But obviously this is a big task to overcome the advantages of the big teams.
And then if the team can make it to the CL, can they stay there is the big questions. Remember that Everton made it a few years ago only to sink right back into the UEFA range the following season. I think it was 2005. Fiorentina would be smart to learn from the mistakes and challenges that faced Everton after their 4th place finish.
Overall, I like Fiorentina’s position much more than Everton’s going forward. The money in England is so much greater, and Everton has a Tottenham team to contend with that looks like it is finally getting its shit together and has some real money behind it. Plus Aston Villa is strong, Man City has a dictator’s vast pocketbooks behind the team and Newcastle, while completely inept, is not poor either.
Great post.
Posted from
United States -
It’s going to be a beautiful game, I hope. I think Everton aren’t above trying for a physical advantage in the game, but let’s hope the kids are wily enough to outwit them. Should be a cracker, if all’s fair. Fingers crossed for Fiorentina.
And thank you for a great post, and the lovely Macca picture.
Posted from
India -
everton is a classless piece of english shit.i remember watching them play a couple of years ago against dinamo bucharest and losing 5-1.in that year, they took the 4th place in premierleague but lost to villareal in qualifications in champions league.fiorentina is more capable of raising their game in important matches.i think the value of english football is overestimated.a lot of physical strengh but no brains,quite the oposite to the italian style of playing.you just have to compare italian coaches to the english ones.english coaches are a bunch of clowns.who are the most successfull coaches in england?!are they english?ferguson(scottish),wenger(french)eriksson(sweden)etc.my most eloquent example would be steve mclaren,and we know how successfull he was with england,right?.the only english coach that i respect is bobby robson.i cant wait to see how capello will show what it means to coach.
Posted from
United States -
Dumitru, excellent point about English coaches…I am just wondering why it is relevant to a game in involving Everton.
Posted from
United Kingdom -
i think you are kidding yourselves, the english premier is twice the league serie a is these days, serie a is living off its past. while i agree your league is far superior in terms of skill, intelligence and tactics, it does not measure up compared to the speed, athleticism and sheer hunger of engl;ish teams. you only have to look at arsenal out witting ac, man u thumping roma, liverpool( a poor poor team) defeating inter with ease, to see that the italain game has gone backwards and been left behind. everton to win 5-1 on agg!!
Posted from
United States -
Bodster what a stupid thing to say. The advantage England has over Serie A is simply money. Inter is the only team in Italy with much depth while every team in the top 2/3’s of the premiership has a ridiculous amount of players. Serie A is coming through some lean years and will be back at the top soon, but England is not experiencing the same because you have guys like the Thai murderer and Russian thief buying up clubs for hobbby you have so much cahs you don’t know what to do with it.
EPL = zero class,english players = zero skill
it looks like the same can be said for the fans by looking at you Bodster, you are so quick to cite Milan losing yesterday but i hear nothing of Milan ass kicking league leaders United last year or beating Liverpool in the final.
You are so quick to bring up Liverpool beating Inter “with ease”, maybe we watched a different game? I saw an Inter fucked by the ref and down a man and still keeping the score at nil nil until the very end and then conceding one very unluckily.
Liverpool is a poor team? How much did they spend on Torres this summer? nto the actions of a “poor poor team” buddy,
grow up,
good luck viola.
Posted from
United States -
FOR DUM DUM DUMITRU. 2 hours till kick off - then this piece of shit team - who have been in top flight football longer than any other team - will show you how much they have learnt under davie moyes since our last time in european football. 5 - 1 was a one off. really dont think thats going to happen this time DUM DUM.
Posted from
Canada
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