The Fiorentina Market 360°. The Viola Sporting Director Daniele Prade this Friday he spoke at a press conference to review the strategies of Rocco Commisso’s club during the session just concluded. From the farewell of Nico Gonzalez to the purchase of Moise Kean, passing through all the missed deals: below are his main statements collected by TMW.
On the 11, or rather 12 purchases of Fiorentina: “We have presented eleven players, only the twelfth is missing, Valentini, who will arrive in January”.
On Nico Gonzalez’s farewell: “We all thought we would win the Conference League final and a defeat like that leaves permanent roots. And the one in the America’s Cup had an impact on Nico Gonzalez’s mind, it changed it, he felt like taking a different step. Luckily I had spoken of a 99% chance of staying, that 1% saved me”.
About Kean: “All the decisions are shared with the other managers, the president and the coach. There is no decision that is not shared 100%, after the coach he was the first one we took, together with Valentini”.
On the direct line with Juve: “Absolutely not, it’s a company like any other, with which we work. McKennie, Kostic and Arthur are very normal market situations but we never had the objective of negotiating with other players for Nico Gonzalez. Kean was there much earlier, we were already looking for him in January, we all really wanted him”.
Gudmundsson on the spot: “The most difficult, but due to the timing, is Gudmundsson: it starts in January and ends a month after the start of the market. Operations in football are very strange, one week before they don’t exist and the next they are. If I have to say a player we wanted but for whom, due to timing, the conditions weren’t there, it’s Vitor Roque. Maybe it could have reopened…”..
On the offers received for Kayode: “He doesn’t even know it but he’s had offers, more than one. If you ask me, I personally even thought about selling him, but the president would never have done it and I didn’t even have the courage to ask him. He’s also an exceptional guy who has significant margins and I don’t think he was ready for such a big step now. Look at Iling Junior and Barrenechea, who went to the Premier League and then elsewhere after 40 days. There was also a top club for Kayode. And then in the Premier League, for what they earn, they’re all top…”.
On the three failed purchases: “We liked him, a lot. We made an offer but the passage to the next round in the Champions League led Dinamo to make different decisions. We don’t need it but we would have taken one less midfielder. Roberto Goretti wanted Mangala strongly, ever since he arrived. The thing is that he had been paid a lot by Lyon and at the beginning there were no openings for the transfer. When the agents told us they were sending him to play we tried: there was an economic agreement with the boy, but for Lyon the conditions offered by Everton were more advantageous. But there is nothing abnormal. We haven’t found the numbers on Tessmann”..
About Hummels: “We thought about it, but he wanted to wait. He wasn’t ready to make decisions, the same thing happened to him with Bologna and other clubs. He had done it with Real Sociedad and then he changed his mind…”.
Reread all of Pradè’s words here!