Rank 27, WorldCupStory Club Index 16,833
Fiorentina World Cup XI Dream Team
| Fiorentina | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | Country | WCups | Games | Mins | Goals | Capt | |
| GK | Enrico Albertosi | Italy | 2 | 3 | 270 | 0 | 0 |
| RB | Tomas Ujfalusi | Czech Republic | 1 | 2 | 155 | 0 | 0 |
| CB | Ardico Magnini | Italy | 1 | 2 | 180 | 0 | 0 |
| CB | Per Kroldrup | Denmark | 1 | 1 | 56 | 0 | 0 |
| LB | Enzo Robotti | Italy | 1 | 3 | 270 | 0 | 0 |
| MF | Daniel Bertoni | Argentina | 1 | 5 | 401 | 2 | 0 |
| MF | Giancarlo Antognoni | Italy | 2 | 11 | 809 | 0 | 0 |
| MF | Lubos Kubik | Czechoslovakia | 1 | 4 | 349 | 1 | 0 |
| MF | Roberto Baggio | Italy | 1 | 5 | 376 | 2 | 0 |
| ST | Gabriel Batistuta | Argentina | 2 | 9 | 788 | 9 | 1 |
| ST | Luca Toni | Italy | 1 | 6 | 483 | 2 | 0 |
| 14 | 51 | 4137 | 16 | 1 |
Let’s face it, Fiorentina’s place in the club index is entirely down to Gabriel Batistuta, and without him this dream team would look pretty limp.
The portents for the defence are not good. Normally we expect Italian defenders to be reliably tight, but this situation is different; each of our 3 Italian defenders played in a World Cup where Italy failed to progress beyond the group. Enrico Albertosi, in goal, played in 1966 and would be scarred by the defeat to North Korea. Ardico Magnini took part in the failed campaign of 1954, and Enzo Robotti was involved in the 1962 tournament in Chile, and is thus a survivor of the infamous Battle of Santiago, being one of the nine Italians who made it beyond the 41st minute.
They are joined at the back by the Czech, Tomas Ujfalusi, who managed 155 before a red card ended his tournament in 2006, and by the Dane, Per Kroldrup whose World Cup career as a Fiorentina player comprises a mere 56 minutes.
The midfield is a definite improvement. Daniel Bertoni and Lubos Kubik provide some aggression to complement the rare grace of Giancarlo Antognoni, surely a fish out of water in the Italian midfields of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Roberto Baggio from Italia ’90 provides a link between midfield and the strikers.
2006 World Cup winner, Luca Toni, with a couple of goals, lends support to the incomparable Gabriel Batistuta, the only Argentinian to reach 10 goals in World Cup history, and 9 of those as a Fiorentina player.
In the rarified atmosphere of these club dream teams, Fiorentina would struggle to hold their own against most opponents, and you feel that if the opposition could keep Batistuta quiet, there would be not much else to cause concern.
