Carlos Freitasformer Fiorentina manager, spoke about the Viola moment to the microphones of Radio FirenzeViola: “It’s still too early to make definitive judgements. The match against Milan showed that Fiorentina has grit, heart and the ability to suffer. And then they had a goalkeeper in a state of grace. Saving two penalties isn’t easy even for De Gea We start again from this, from the undisputed quality of the goalkeeper and from the team’s ability to suffer in the final minutes of the match.”
As director, would you also have bet on a player like De Gea?
“You have to be courageous to make such a choice. The player’s career speaks for itself, from the Spanish national team to Atletico Madrid and above all Manchester United. However, it is not easy to sign a player who hasn’t played for a year. You need courage, not it was an obvious choice. Knowing that the market was demanding and wanted answers immediately, it was a gamble so congratulations.”
And on Kean, did you expect such a performance?
“The concept of a good player or a great player is vague, there are many. To succeed in a certain reality you need to be well placed in the context and in the module. Palladino has his own idea and chose Kean based on this. Kean is functional to this type of game, he is not as strong as other centre-forwards but he is ideal for this Fiorentina.”
One sour note so far is Lucas Beltran.
“In my opinion he is a player of undisputed quality and he has demonstrated it at an important club. Playing at River Plate is not easy. However, unlike Kean, he needs to be in the area, he must play in a team that dominates the game. I think he can be useful against certain opponents, that is, against the teams against which Fiorentina controls and dominates. For me, in this context he has the ability to score 15-20 goals, if he has to dribble and hold his own physical, you lose.”
On Yacine Adli instead, do you think he can make a difference in Florence?
“His undisputed quality. Perhaps the Bordeaux-Milan leap was too big, an intermediate stage in the middle would have been needed like Fiorentina could have been. He seems to me to be an introverted footballer, someone who needs to be important and Fiorentina is making him feel important”.
What do you think about the many module changes made by Raffaele Palladino?
“From the outside it seems confusing, but on the inside this is an important quality. In Europe there are more and more teams and coaches who change systems several times during the game. Palladino has a clear model but is not too rigid at a system level , who changes a lot during the match. He wants intelligent players, with a cognitive ability that can change positions and roles during the match.”
The full speech in the podcast