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About ACF Fiorentina
ACF Fiorentina (AKA Fiorentina, Viola) is one of Italy’s top professional football clubs. Fiorentina’s home town is Florence in Tuscany. Most of Fiorentina’s history and records are in the Seria A, Italy’s top football league. Founded in 1926, Fiorentina has won the Seria A twice and the Italian Cup 6 times. Internationally the club did not win any major titles but arrived to the final stages as runners up for titles. At the 1960-61 season Fiorentina won the UEFA Cup Winners Cup.
Fiorentina plays at the Artemio Franchi stadium (with a capacity of almost 50,000 seats). Fiorentina’s stadium underwent several name changes over the years and several renovations. Fiorentina’s nickname – Viola – refers to the colors of the kit, which has always been in shades of purple.
The club was formed by the joining of two local Florence teams CS Firenze and PG Libertas. The thought behind the merger was to give Florence a strong club that will be able to contest for the Italian Championship, at the time open only to clubs from the North of Italy. It took Fiorentina only until 1931 to reach the Seria A, in time with the completion of its stadium, originally named Giovanni Berta (after a prominent fascist). In 1941 ACF Fiorentina won their first Coppa Italia, but the team were unable to build on their success during the 1940s because of World War II.
Gabriel Batistuta, became a player identified with Fiorentina during the 1990s. After a fall to the Seria B the club recruited Claudio Ranieri as coach for the 93-94 season. Upon their return to Serie A, Ranieri put together a good team centred around Batistuta, signing also Rui Costa from Benfica and Brazilian defender Marcio Santos. Costa became an idol to Fiorentina fans. in 1996 Fiorentina won the Italian Super Cup, defeating AC Milan at the San Siro.
In 1998, Giovanni Trapattoni was coaching Fiorentina. The club finished third but earned qualification for the UEFA Champions League. The following year Viola played some historical matches, beating Arsenal 1-0 in London and Manchester United 2-0 in Florence. In 2001 Fiorentina won the Coppa Italia for the sixth and last time. Financial difficulties followed and a fall to the forth tier of Italian football, Seria C2, for one season. By chance, the same year the Seria B was made to hold 24 teams instead of 20 and thus Fiorentina skipped a Seria C season and was promoted straight to the Seria B. Fiorentina returned to the Seria A at the 2004-5 season and stayed there since. (On July 2006, Fiorentina was relegated to Serie B due to its involvement in the 2006 match fixing scandal. The team was reinstated to the Serie A on appeal, but with a 19-point penalty for the 2006-07 season.) ACF Fiorentina News
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