On September 21, 1986, at the Artemio Franchi in Florence, the match between Fiorentina and Sampdoria was scheduled. It’s the second day of the championship and a normal match becomes history thanks to Roberto Baggio’s debut in Serie A. He was no slouch, on the contrary, because he had already shown his talent extensively with the Vicenza jersey. Then a knee injury becomes problematic, so much so that it risks ruining his career. Medicine has progressed over the decades, but Baggio at that moment did not know if he would play again or not.
Eugenio Bersellini is on the bench for Fiorentina. That it is another era is dictated by the fact that on the pitch, for the Viola, there is only one foreigner, the Argentine Ramon Diaz, who arrived from Avellino. The final two to zero, however, is not conditioned by the presence of Baggio, but by Ramon Diaz who scores a brace.
Baggio had signed with Fiorentina but had been out for a year, because on 5 May 1985 he had suffered an injury to his anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus. During that period, the Divine Ponytail embraced the Buddhist faith, which would be a fundamental pillar throughout his career. His career with the Fiorentina shirt would end with a guerrilla warfare in Piazza Savonarola, with cobblestones flying in the direction of the management, contesting the Pontello ownership.