Fiorentina

Florence had no club capable of troubling the sides forming in the industrial north-west, merging Club Sportivo Firenze with the gymnastics outfit Palestra Ginnastica Libertas in 1926 into a single team meant to challenge Juventus, Milan and Genoa and to carry the city's old calcio storico forward under one badge.

The shirt gave the club its identity before anything else did. Purple against white made Viola the name that stuck, with the Purples used in English and Gigliati kept as a quieter reference to the city's heraldic lily. Home games are played at the Stadio Artemio Franchi.

Two Serie A titles, in 1955–56 and 1968–69, sit either side of a run of six Coppa Italia wins stretched across six decades. The single European trophy came in 1961, when Fiorentina beat Rangers to lift the Cup Winners' Cup. The 1996 Supercoppa Italiana was odder still: Fiorentina took it as league runners-up who had also won the Coppa Italia, the first time the Supercoppa had gone to a side that hadn't been champions.

Juventus supplies the fixture Florence still calls the partita madre, sharpened by the 1990 UEFA Cup final and by Roberto Baggio's move to Turin, which some in the city have never quite forgiven. Giancarlo Antognoni gave the club fifteen seasons and a reputation for staying put. Davide Astori, captain when he died in 2018, is remembered rather than replaced.

Fiorentina reached the Europa Conference League final in 2022–23 and again in 2023–24, losing both, and the club now returns to Serie A.