AC Milan’s natural rivals are their cousins from the other half of the city, the Nerazzurri of Inter. This year, however, they may have found a different type of match. In terms of a general approach to football, it can be argued that Fiorentina are the season’s dark twin of Milan.
How are these two teams opposed? They are performing very differently in the league, of course. Milan have enjoyed an opening to the season so nightmarish that many fans believe the race to be already over. With only three points earned in four games, they sit at an embarrassing fifteenth spot in the table, and nothing suggests they are about to start climbing.
Fiorentina, on the other hand, have found a leader in Vincenzo Montella and a champion in Stevan Jovetic, and with seven points to their name, they are fifth. This may not set them up as direct challengers to Juventus for the title, but they are beguilingly close to the rarefied spaces of international football, and their prospects are far greener than they were last season (or the one before).
Points aside, though, the real difference between these two teams lies in their approach to football. Fiorentina are arguably the most technical team in Serie A – not in the sense that they have the greatest number of quality players (though they can certainly put up a fight), rather in the sense that technique is such a pre-eminent characteristic of their squad as a whole. They play in a 3-5-2 that is entirely constructed on creative midfielders and technical wingers. Mati Fernandez used to be a seconda punta, a highly technical striker, before Montella re-adapted him to the midfield role. David Pizarro is fundamentally a regista, and so is Alberto Aquilani (arguably his natural replacement).
Jovetic needs no introductions – he has been the classiest Fiorentina player for years, and he is finally coming into his own as one of the best strikers in the league. It is a team built in such a way that even the humblest interpreters are led to shine. Mattia Cassani, who is a solid fullback but hardly a wonder-kid, looked against Parma like the ink that runs down Shakespeare’s pen, cutting around corners and rolling his legs around the ball like Ronaldo. Even Facundo Roncaglia – of all people – scored a beautiful goal and came close to a netting a second one last Sunday. Consider that he is the team’s central defender, and draw your own conclusions.
Milan, on the other hand, have spent the summer mercato giving away all of their most technical forwards, from Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Antonio Cassano. They have replaced the latter with Giampaolo Pazzini, who is one of the most classic prima puntas currently playing in Italian football. In the midfield, they play with an armi of mediani – workmen who have the lungs but not the quality.
Massimo Ambrosini is one such player, as is Antonio Nocerino. Rajath Kumar has fleshed out the argument against the midfield more extensively in last week’s AC Milan Club Focus, so we will not go over the same ground. Suffice it to say that such players can work in combination with other, more creative registi. In isolation, they are abortive. It is true that Riccardo Montolivo has been purhased to supplement those shortcomings, but he has failed to shine so far.
Add to that defenders like Daniele Bonera, who are the very embodiment of mediocrity, and you get a team that is focussed on body, physique, pressure – but never technique. Unsurprisingly, when they lost 2-1 to Udinese, one of the main reasons was their inability to find offensive solutions.
The funny thing is that Milan do possess some creativity in their bench, especially coming forward. Mostly, however, this talent seems unable to flourish. El Shaarawy clearly has potential, but last Sunday he seemed not to fit well with the rest of the system. Bojan Krkic, Robinho and Pato are all highly technical players, but each seems lost in a fog of his own (Robinho is supposedly about to come back, so we shall see). It may just be that Milan’s focus on building an a-technical team is damaging those few players he possesses who do have some solid talent.
As for Fiorentina, the fact that they rely so heavily on technique certainly doesn’t make them the best team of the league. There is a wide chasm between what la Viola look like when they have the ball and when they are chasing it. They suffer defensively and lack the cynicism necessary to score the easy goals as well as the beautiful ones – which is why Parma succeeded in snatching a late equaliser after their rivals could not bring their lead to 2-0.
On Tuesday evening Fiorentina are going against Juventus, the best team in Italy. They stand a better chance than Milan, but they still have many holes to patch. Still, with so much talent on display (and on both sides), it should be an exceptionally entertaining game. In fact all of Fiorentina’s games are, as of late. Likewise, all of Milan’s games are rather boring. This makes them the odd couple of Serie A, standing at two extremes of a spectrum which sees all the other teams floating at various points in the middle.
