The air in Florence smelled of freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked bread when Pablo Lombardi opened his eyes in a room that wasn't his. The walls were covered with posters of Maradona and Baggio, and through the open window drifted the noise of a city still celebrating the recent World Cup in Italy. A glance at the desk calendar left him breathless: June 25, 1990. He touched his face in the wardrobe mirror—younger, without the wrinkles he remembered—and then he knew the impossible had happened. He had traveled back in time.
There had been no dizziness, no blinding lights—just the distant whistle of a train and the echo of a soccer match playing on a neighbor's radio. Pablo, who in another life had been an unremarkable defensive midfielder in Italy, was now thirty-two years old with a mind loaded with three decades of football knowledge. The first thing he did was pull a spiral notebook from a drawer and write three names on the first page: Zidane (10), Buffon (1), Batistuta (9). Then, with barely trembling hands, he dialed the number of Fiorentina's sporting director.
The First Contact
The Artemio Franchi stadium was half-empty when Pablo arrived for his meeting with president Vittorio Cecchi Gori. The club, newly promoted to Serie B, smelled of dampness and defeat.
"A coach with no experience?" Cecchi Gori arched an eyebrow skeptically, toying with an unlit cigarette.
Pablo didn't flinch. He had rehearsed this moment in his head a hundred times.
"I'm not asking for the first team. Let me take the reserves, and I promise you two things: in a year, we'll have a defender worth twenty times his current value, and we'll be in Serie A before 1993."
The name Cafú (2) echoed in the room when Pablo said it. The Brazilian, then an unknown fullback at São Paulo, would be his first gamble.
The Violet Seed
The next day's training with the reserve team was a disaster. The players, used to Italy's rigid catenaccio, eyed Pablo's instructions with suspicion.
"I want the fullbacks attacking like wingers. And you," he pointed at a chubby central midfielder, "forget about five-meter passes. Here, we take risks."
But it was in a friendly against Pisa three weeks later that everything changed. Pablo lined up a seventeen-year-old named Angelo Di Livio (7) as an attacking midfielder—a position the kid had never played. By the seventieth minute, Di Livio had two assists and five ball recoveries. The local press dubbed him "Loco Lombardi's gift."
The Signing That Changed Everything
October 1990. Pablo traveled to Brazil with a sealed envelope containing 10% of the club's annual budget. Marcos Evangelista de Moraes "Cafú" (2), then a frustrated forward turned fullback at São Paulo, didn't understand why an Italian second-division team was so insistent on signing him.
"Here, you'll become the best right-back in the world," Pablo told him in rough Portuñol, showing edited videos of how he'd fit into the system. Cafú signed for $750,000—a steal compared to what he'd be worth a decade later.
His Serie B debut was a scandal. Cafú ran 11.3 kilometers (insane for the time), delivered two assists, and committed five fouls. The purists criticized him; the fans loved him instantly.
The Miracle of Promotion
May 1991. Fiorentina needed one point against Brescia to secure promotion. The Artemio Franchi, packed for the first time in years, erupted when Cafú (2) received a pass in his own box, sprinted 90 meters past four defenders, and crossed for Di Livio (7) to tap in.
1-0. Serie A.
In the locker room, drenched in cheap champagne, Pablo wrote another name in his notebook: Gabriel Batistuta (9). The Argentine, then unknown at Boca Juniors, would be his next move. But that was a battle for the summer.
The First Oath
Cafú, still in his muddy boots, found Pablo alone in the tunnel.
"Mister, why did you believe in me?"
Pablo handed him the captain's armband he'd taken from the veteran center-back.
"Because great teams are built from the flanks. And you, Marcos, will be the first of many."
That night, as Florence celebrated, Pablo smiled from his balcony overlooking the Arno. This was only the beginning.
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