Following Fiorentina’s Europa League defeat to Basel on Thursday evening, the club’s co-owner Andrea Della Valle backed new coach Paulo Sousa to ensure qualification to the next stage.
Despite Nikola Kalinic’s early goal, Basel came back to win 2-1 in the match, which saw Gonzalo Rodriguez dismissed while Fiorentina still led.
“It was a shame because until 70 minutes we did well,” Della Valle conceded to FirenzeViola.it, “and we knew they would be a tough team coming here after eight victories. The sending off of Gonzalo was crucial, but there is nothing too dramatic.
“This is a manageable group, and we will try to build on the good that we saw tonight. Sousa will work with that for the future, and it is a defeat that will be painless when we are safe.”
“Now we are thinking of Carpi and Bologna,” he continued, “though I think at the end of the evening it was an undeserved defeat; I think we might have had a penalty for Babacar, but we won’t make too much of it.”
He went on to discuss the fitness of Jakub Blaszczykowski, after the Pole struck the woodwork early in the second half.
“Kuba is not 100% yet,” he explained, “we still have to wait for him. If he had scored when he hit the post, the game would have ended there. We are more concerned with the injuries suffered tonight, to Astori and Ilicic.”
