Too Good To Go Down

Fiorentina 1992-93

At first glance, it all looked rather beautiful. On closer inspection, lay something darker and more troubling.

Perhaps the furore around Fiorentina’s away strip in 1992-93 became a metaphor for the team’s campaign as a whole.

Just how did a team with Gabriel Batistuta, Brian Laudrup, Stefan Effenberg and Francesco Baiano end up fighting for survival in Serie A? How did it drop from second place in January and into Serie B by June?

And why did it take so long for someone to realise that their away shirt had swastikas all over it?