A few years ago, Fiorentina experienced so many lows it is difficult to establish a nadir. Was it, perhaps, when president Vittorio Cecchi Gori was found — alongside nine grams of cocaine — in his silk pyjamas next to voluptuous TV star Valeria Marini in a morning raid of his Palazzo Borghese villa in Rome? Or was it the constant allegations that the famous film tycoon was involved in money laundering to save the club?
Then there was the time when Fiorentina could no longer pay their players, despite selling Francesco Toldo and Manuel Rui Costa for £44-million. And, finally, the day when they were declared bankrupt and demoted to Serie C2, the Italian fourth division.
The last one, which happened in the 2002, makes La Viola’s rise to second in this season’s Serie A even more remarkable. And it is all down to the efficient work of a rather vain shoe magnate. Diego della Valle (51) acquired the club in 2002 and is now the president. A charming visionary, he seeks to mix the best of John F Kennedy and Gianni Agnelli. Della Valle recently bought the former American president’s cruiser Merlin and talks about Kennedy being a ”dream for a whole generation”.
Owning a football club, meanwhile, has taken him closer to becoming a modern-day Agnelli, the former head of Juventus. ”I think that he [Agnelli] was a very good example for my generation of the simple life,” Della Valle told the Financial Times. ”He was a powerful man. Charming, rich, with a lot of women and with good taste for many things. He was an Italian who stayed in Torino [rather than moving abroad].”
Della Valle is determined to do the same and keep Tod’s, his luxury goods company that started out as shoe manufacturers, in Italy. He has done the unthinkable and made Italians think that ”casual is good” — although it obviously has to be presented in a luxurious way — and wants Tod’s to be one of the top three luxury brands in the world.
He freely admits that buying a popular football club isn’t harming the image of him or the company. ”Our idea was that we build a very strong sense of a friendly football team.”
Most players have exceeded expectations. The 30-year-old playmaker Stefano Fiore, once so impressive for Lazio, has returned from Spain to become the creative heartbeat of the side, while Bulgarian wunderkind Valeri Bojinov has settled in after a difficult first year at the club.
Coach Cesare Prandelli, meanwhile, has miraculously created one of Serie A’s best midfields out of the inconsistent Martin Jorgensen, 22-year-old Marco Donadel and Cristian Brocchi, a squat fighter who everyone assumed got the chance at Inter only because he was mates with Christian Vieri. Sebastian Frey, as always, has been outstanding in goal.
But, for all their efforts, the spotlight has been fixed on 28-year-old striker Luca Toni. A fortnight ago, he scored twice to help Fiorentina secure a 3-1 win over AC Milan and he got the equaliser in the 1-1 draw with Roma last weekend. Fiorentina lie third, two points behind AC Milan and seven behind leaders Juventus.
Toni has now scored 16 goals in 13 Serie A games. ”I’m living in a magic moment and I hope it won’t stop,” he said last week. ”Everything I touch seems to turn into a goal. I hope I can give hope to players in Serie C that they one day can achieve their dreams of scoring goals on a regular basis in Serie A.”
Toni has had a topsy-turvy career and even wondered, at the end of the 1998/99 season, whether he was ever going to make it after five goals in 31 games for Serie C side Lodigiani. But a move to Treviso and 15 goals in Serie B led to his top-flight debut with Vicenza in 2000. Last season, he scored 20 goals for Palermo and Marcello Lippi gave him his international debut.
This season he has become the smoothest of all football stars —strong, suave and therefore tailor-made for the kind of image Della Valle wants his team to transmit. Not content with being six goals ahead of second-placed David Trezeguet in the goal-scoring charts, Toni has signed six-figure sponsorship deals and been on the front pages of the gossip mags.
”I would like to be the face of some products and maybe I can film some adverts with my [model] girlfriend Marta,” he said. ”She once saved my career. When I was at Fiorenzuola I was kept on the bench all the time and I was thinking of chucking it all in and going back to Modena, playing amateur football and getting a job, but she was there for me and made me feel calm. And slowly, slowly things started to go right for me on the pitch.” — Â