The beginning of Roberto Mancini's coaching career: chaos and controversy in Florence

The beginning of Roberto Mancini’s coaching career: chaos and controversy in Florence

By Giancarlo Rinaldi

Sweeping back his trademark flowing locks on the sidelines at the Etihad Stadium, Roberto Mancini contemplates which multi-million pound star to throw into the fray. The fans sing a hymn in his praise and he waves, smiling, in recognition of their words. But, in his coaching career, ithas not always been this way. The former Sampdoria star cut his managerial teeth in a much more trying set of circumstances. More than a decade ago, before he had even properly hung up his boots, he was thrown in at the deep end to run a club on the brink of financial collapse with its fans in a state of continual turmoil. Welcome to Fiorentina in 2001.

The Viola had been regulars in the Champions League but, in the background, their president, film producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori, had failed to keep a close eye on the books. Without the watchful gaze of his father Mario, who passed away in 1993, things spiralled out of control. In a desperate attempt to balance the accounts he had sold Gabriel Batistuta to Roma in the summer of 2000 and there were rumours the players were not being paid. It was a script which would not have a happy ending.

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