Associazione Calcio Fiorentina fell a couple of steps back in its first season following striker Gabriel Batistuta's departure.

While Batistuta finally won a long overdue Serie A title with Roma, Fiorentina had a struggling season, where coach Fatih Terim suddenly resigned and accepted the same job in Milan instead, and the club sensationally opted for recently retired Roberto Mancini to take over.

Although respectability in the league was upheld by goalkeeper Francesco Toldo, playmaker Rui Costa and striker Enrico Chiesa, both Toldo and Rui Costa departed for the Milanese clubs in the summer of 2001, as president Vittorio Cecchi Gori desperately tried to save a collapsing economy.

Even though the top players of the club held very high standards, the depth in the squad was not at a very strong level, which would ensure 2001-02 to be a testing time for the Florence faithful.

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