Fiorentina 2025/26 Season So Far: From Relegation Fight to Revival Under Vanoli
Fiorentina came into the season with high hopes and a genuine belief that this would be a year of progress. With Paolo Vanoli newly in charge and a summer that looked like it was built for progress, the mood in Florence was about pushing toward Europe. Instead, the first half of the campaign turned into a slow, brutal reality check. Results never settled, confidence drained, and a team that thought it had a clear direction spent most of the season staring at the relegation zone.
That is what makes the current moment so striking. After months stuck in the bottom three, Fiorentina have finally shifted the story from survival panic to recovery. The climb has not been glamorous, but they look be starting to put it together: clearer structure, sharper game management, and wins that actually move the needle. Now they are outside the relegation places, with a run-in that will test whether this turnaround is a short burst of form or the beginning of a reset that can rescue their season and restore the expectations they started with.
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How It Went Wrong So Fast
The problem was that the season never actually started for them in the way it should have. Results didn’t just dip, they collapsed into a pattern of draws and narrow defeats against the sort of opponents Fiorentina normally look at as points on the board, the kind of games where you expect to bank points even when you’re not at your best. Instead, every week became a new reminder that the floor was falling away: a promising performance would end without a win, a decent first half would be undone by one moment, and the team began playing as if they were waiting for something to go wrong.
The early warning signs were loud. They could land a punch, like going ahead at San Siro through Robin Gosens and still watch the match turn against them, losing 2–1 to AC Milan after Rafael Leão flipped it late, including a decisive penalty. A few days later came the sort of defeat that damages more than the points column: a 3–0 loss away to Inter that underlined how fragile Fiorentina were when games sped up, and momentum swung.
That early stumble snowballed into a full crisis in November. Pioli was sacked on November 4 after a winless first 10 rounds that left Fiorentina stuck at the bottom end of the table, with the breaking point a 1–0 home loss to Lecce, exactly the type of match that, in a normal season, you use to steady yourself. Once a club makes that move that early, it’s a signal: this isn’t a wobble, it’s an emergency.
From there, the mood around the club flipped. The talk stopped being “European push” and became “how do we stop the panic spreading?” When a team built to chase the top half is suddenly living in the relegation zone week after week, everything changes: selection gets tense, confidence drains, and every match becomes about avoiding the mistake that breaks you. Even when they later showed they still had goals in them, smashing Udinese 5–1 at the Franchi in December, it felt more like a flare gun than a reset, because the broader league form still hadn’t stabilised.
That is what made the first phase of the season so brutal: it wasn’t one bad result, it was the repetition. The league table didn’t lie, and the longer the winless run dragged on, the more Fiorentina started playing the opponent and the weight of their own expectations.
Vanoli’s Impact
Vanoli’s reset has been matched by a winter window that looks designed to raise Fiorentina’s floor and significantly turn around their season. The most immediate attacking lift came from Manor Solomon, who has given them a true wide outlet for transitions, someone who can carry the ball upfield, win territory, and make defences turn, which has helped Fiorentina play more direct when the game state demands it. Jack Harrison has added a different type of winger: more functional minutes, more work-rate and structure on the flank, and a clearer route to chance creation through consistent wide delivery rather than improvisation.
In the middle, Marco Brescianini has brought physicality and running power, giving Vanoli an option who can eat up ground, compete for second balls, and support a more “survival” style where midfield reliability matters as much as artistry. At the back, the Daniele Rugani loan has been the classic relegation-window stabiliser: experience, organisation, and calmer defensive management, the kind of presence that helps a team protect leads and reduce the chaos that was killing them earlier in the season.
Giovanni Fabbian is the more structural addition in midfield/attack. This runner can arrive in the box and give Fiorentina another way to threaten without needing long spells of dominance, which suits a side trying to win tight matches on moments and patterns.
Contrasting Europe Run
In Europe, Fiorentina’s Conference League run has been steadier than their league season, even if it hasn’t been flawless. In the league phase, they finished 15th, which put them into the seeded side of the knockout play-offs rather than straight into the round of 16, solid enough to stay on track,
but not dominant enough to cruise. From there, they have taken a real step toward reasserting themselves: the 3–0 first-leg win away to Jagiellonia Białystok has essentially turned the second leg, which they play at home on February 26, into a game about professionalism and control, managing the tempo, and get through without gifting belief to the opponent.
And despite the Serie A mess, they’re still viewed as one of the tournament’s credible contenders: betting markets continue to list Fiorentina among the leading group behind the top-priced sides, which speaks to their experience in this competition and the fact they still have the squad quality to go deep if they keep handling ties like this correctly.
Strong Recent Form
Fiorentina’s recent run is the first time all season they’ve looked like a team with momentum instead of panic, and it’s been built on exactly the kind of games relegation fights are decided by: tight margins, ugly minutes, and one player finishing the moment. The turning point away at Como was massive. Fiorentina won 2–1 with Nicolò Fagioli’s opener and Moise Kean’s penalty, a result that Football Italia framed as a shock win that pushed them up and gave their survival bid real oxygen.
The next statement was the 1–0 derby win over Pisa, where Kean scored again, his third Serie A goal in as many games and the win lifted Fiorentina out of the relegation zone, with the team showing a far more controlled first-half performance before surviving the chaos late.What’s made this run feel different is that it hasn’t relied on Fiorentina suddenly becoming brilliant; it’s been about becoming harder to beat, then letting key individuals decide games. Kean has been the headline because he’s delivered the decisive goals in consecutive league matches, while Fagioli’s contribution at Como mattered because it gave Fiorentina an early platform in a match they couldn’t afford to chase.
Even in Europe, the same pattern has helped them: the 3–0 away win over Jagiellonia wasn’t about nonstop dominance, it was about surviving the start and then landing clean second-half blows through Ranieri and Mandragora, before Piccoli sealed it from the spot, another example of a team that’s finally learned how to win ties with control.
What To Watch Moving Forward
The caution is that Fiorentina are only just clear of the drop, and the bottom of the table is still one bad week away from pulling them back in. The 1–0 win over Pisa lifted them out of the relegation zone, but it also left them tied on points with nearby sides in the same scrap, which tells you how quickly the picture can flip. One bad fortnight, a sloppy concession, a red card, or a late collapse, and you are right back where you started.
The next pressure point is Europe. Fiorentina host Jagiellonia Białystok at the Franchi on Thursday, February 26, holding a 3–0 first-leg advantage, so the task is simple but non-negotiable. Then it is straight back into league survival mode, with fixtures like Udinese and Parma next on the schedule, where the margin for error is still thin and every point feels expensive.
If you want the cleanest way to frame Fiorentina’s season so far, it is this: they arrived expecting a European push, spent months fearing Serie B, and are now finally playing like a team that has accepted the fight, found a functional identity, and given themselves a real chance to stay up.
