Second in January, relegated in June: Fiorentina's fall and rebuild

Fiorentina's replacement for Roberto Baggio arrived in the summer of 1991. Vittorio Cecchi Gori, the club's vice-president and the son of its new owner, signed Gabriel Batistuta after the Copa América in Chile. Batistuta was 22 and had finished the tournament as its top scorer.

Six games into Batistuta's first season, Luigi Radice replaced Sebastião Lazaroni as coach. In November the Stadio Comunale was renamed after Artemio Franchi, the former president of the Italian football federation and a Fiorentina official. Batistuta scored 13 league goals, and Fiorentina finished 12th for the third year running.

Second at the break

In the summer of 1992 the Cecchi Goris spent. Stefan Effenberg came from Bayern Munich. Brian Laudrup came having just won the European Championship with Denmark, and Francesco Baiano came from Foggia. Radice built the side around two strikers. "I have in mind a team with two fixed forwards," he said, and they were Batistuta and Baiano.

For half a season it worked. A 2–0 home win over Juventus lifted Fiorentina to second, and they reached the winter break level on points with Inter and Torino. They had also lost 7–3 at home to Milan, but they were among the leaders.

In early January 1993 they lost 1–0 at home to Atalanta. Vittorio Cecchi Gori, still vice-president under his father Mario, sacked Radice. "You can't lose games like this, conceding a single chance," Vittorio said.

Aldo Agroppi came in and changed the system. "We'll play man-to-man," he said. "It's all I know." Fiorentina went nine games without a win. Across their last 20 matches of the season they won three, drew nine and lost eight. In late April Agroppi went too, and Luciano Chiarugi took over, with Giancarlo Antognoni as technical supervisor.

6 June 1993

On the final day Fiorentina scored six against Foggia. It wasn't enough. Udinese drew 1–1 with Roma, and Brescia won at Sampdoria. Fiorentina, Brescia and Udinese finished level on points, and Fiorentina had the worst head-to-head record of the three. Brescia lost a play-off to Udinese in Bologna and went down with them, alongside Ancona and Pescara.

Fiorentina had been in Serie A for more than 50 years. "We thought we'd built a team that could conquer Europe," said Mario Cecchi Gori. "Instead we're in Serie B." Effenberg blamed the January decision. "The mistake was sacking Radice," he said. "With him we'd become a team that knew how to win."

Serie B

Batistuta had scored 16 league goals in the relegation season. He stayed, and so did Effenberg. The new coach was Claudio Ranieri, from Napoli, and a young goalkeeper, Francesco Toldo, came into the side.

On 5 November 1993 Mario Cecchi Gori died in Rome. Huge crowds came to his funeral in Piazza Santa Croce, and Vittorio became president.

Fiorentina won Serie B with 50 points, going up with Bari, Brescia and Padova. Batistuta scored 16 goals, and left before the end of the season to prepare for the World Cup with Argentina.

Eleven in a row

Back in Serie A, Fiorentina signed a 21-year-old midfielder from Benfica, Rui Costa, along with the Brazilian Márcio Santos, a World Cup winner that summer.

Batistuta scored in every one of Fiorentina's first 11 league games of 1994–95. That broke Ezio Pascutti's record of ten, which had stood for 32 years. He finished as Serie A's top scorer with 26 goals, which equalled Kurt Hamrin's club record for a season from 1958–59. Fiorentina lost 8–2 to Lazio and finished tenth. The crowds came anyway. The average attendance at the Franchi was 34,400, a record for a newly promoted side.

Bergamo

In 1995–96 Fiorentina went 15 league games unbeaten between November and March and finished fourth.

The Coppa Italia went better still. Fiorentina beat Ascoli, Lecce, Palermo and Inter on the way to the final, with a Batistuta hat-trick against Inter. They won all eight of their cup matches, five of them away from home, scoring 17 goals and conceding three.

Their opponents in the final were Emiliano Mondonico's Atalanta. In the first leg in Florence on 2 May, Rui Costa played a short corner to Batistuta, who scored from long range. Toldo made the saves that kept it 1–0.

The second leg was in Bergamo on 18 May. Lorenzo Amoruso scored early in the second half, and Batistuta added a second around the hour, so he had scored in both legs. Fiorentina won 3–0 on aggregate and took the Coppa Italia for the fifth time.

About 40,000 people were waiting in Florence when the team came home.