AN UNCOMMON OPPONENT
Our summer adversaries, so far, have all been familiar and we’ll come up against each of Leeds United, West Ham United, Bournemouth and Everton on at least another two occasions between now and May.
The same cannot be said for Fiorentina. A quarter of a century has passed since the Serie A outfit were drawn in our UEFA Champions League group during the 1999/2000 season, and a lot has changed since then for both clubs.
United were reigning European champions when we were beaten 2-0 in Tuscany, a result we avenged later in the campaign with a 3-1 victory back at Old Trafford.
Fiorentina, meanwhile, actually ceased to exist within a couple of years of those contests, being re-established in the fourth tier following financial trouble.
They made a swift return to Serie A in 2004 and have performed solidly in most seasons since, without ever quite threatening to become the force they were in the late 1990s, when the likes of Gabriel Batistuta and Manuel Rui Costa pulled on the iconic and eye-catching purple shirt.
