Columnist and market man for TMW, he is a speaker and radio commentator for Radio Sportiva. Market and rumors for Rai Sport
The flagship of Rocco Commisso’s project and his Fiorentina that flies in the championship has a name: Viola Park. Where the present grows, where the future is born, it is a sports center like few others in the world. It is enough to talk to every insider who sets foot in it to understand that in Italy it has no yardstick by comparison and even abroad, even in the Premier League, there are none equally beautiful, modern, large and cutting-edge. Very high management costs, we are talking about 10 million euros per year, he is the Top Player that Mediacom ownership has decided to put on the Viola table every year for the growth of the project. And there is a very interesting fact regarding the very young Italian talents: if before Fiorentina was seen as a destination like many others, and under just as many, now when a boy, his family and his entourage cross the doors of the center sports club located in Bagno a Ripoli, the Viola club becomes the first choice (or so) for almost everyone. And this applies to the very young, to the little plants that will represent the future of the company, in a project where the company is already reaping the first fruits.
From Fiorentina to blue
There is a very interesting fact regarding Fiorentina’s youth sector and this certainly makes the Italian Football Federation happy too. Because the squad that is currently leading the Primavera championship is practically made up almost exclusively of Italian players. Indeed: when they conquered the top of the championship in Turin in September, the team was made up only of players who could (and often do) wear the shirts of the Italian youth team. The one who grew up at home and has already made his debut in the first team is Tommaso Rubino, someone who scored even more goals than Camarda in the Under 17 Students in the 2022/2023 season, someone who exceeded double figures in the Primavera last season and who now he travels at a very high pace (clearly stopped by his presence in the first team). On the other hand, with Raffaele Palladino, Fiorentina has a coach who, see the story of defender Pietro Comuzzo, is not afraid to launch the best guys with personalities into the first team. The call-up of Luciano Spalletti is the sublimation of this extraordinary journey.
How much talent grows at home
For this reason he will be able to draw heavily from the youth sector: up front he also has Maat Daniel Caprini and Francesco Presta, who between goals, assists and personality are two ready for the big leap. Born in Italy and with Ivorian origins, Bala Keita in midfield can really be the next reinforcement in midfield for the Viola. He has pace, physique, technique, at seventeen he already seems ready for the next step as are the defenders Leonardo Baroncelli and Eddy Kouadio, already in the first team ranks. All without forgetting the virtuous path that many kids are making with loans (waiting for Fiorentina to decide to open their second team): eighteen-year-old Niccolò Fortini is doing extraordinary things in Serie B with Juve Stabia. Lorenzo Amatucci at Salernitana, Costantino Favasuli at Bari, Lorenzo Lucchesi at Reggiana, Filippo Distefano at Frosinone, are four other examples of how the Giglia club already has the future at home and will not have to invest and disperse capital on the market.
Is the future of the national team between the posts?
The youth sector project is led by Valentino Angeloni who, together with a scouting department that operates in a widespread manner in the search for talent throughout Italy, monitors (and often convinces) the best prospects identified to grow in Viola Park. And then there are the goalkeepers. Florence has now embraced David de Gea, perhaps the best signing of the entire Italian summer in terms of prices, costs, trust, idea and performance. However, at Viola Park, in the youth sector, some of the best talents of the entire Italian movement are growing also between the posts and this is also thanks to an ad hoc, vertical job that Fiorentina has decided to undertake in order to have a guaranteed future for years . Tommaso Martinelli has been around the first team for some time, he is soon destined to be second in Viola and also to spend a season on loan as a protagonist (Fiorentina sees a Carnesecchi-like project for him with Atalanta) in Serie B. Tommaso Vannucchi is another name to keep an eye on, also a protagonist in the Italian youth team, although this season the name who has become a protagonist with the Primavera is Pietro Leonardelli. Which he took without ever leaving the stakes of the lily project.
Clear strategy
The youth sector led by Angeloni follows the line and path traced by the first team and follows clear and crystalline ideas. In scouting there is extreme attention and capillarity in the search for talent, starting from the youngest age groups in the Tuscany region. This explains the high number of Tuscan and also Florentine kids who are slowly arriving until Spring. Not only that: Fiorentina also carefully follows all the best that is ‘left out’ by the other big names. In fact, if we look at the history and young careers of many of the boys in the Viola Park cantera, we can see that many of these have played in many competitors who then turned (often) towards foreign profiles rather than these Italians. So Comuzzo, Kayode, Bianco but also for the aforementioned Caprini, 2006 who the Viola picked up from Entella, he who also moved from Milan and is now an Under 19 national team. Enhancement of the product, research in Tuscany, in Italy and unique structures in our country. This is how the future of one of the revelations of our championship is born, and it is only the beginning…