Fiorentina drew 1-1 away against Lecce at the Via del Mare on 21 April, a result that kept Vanoli's side above the relegation zone but did little to ease the anxiety surrounding a club that has managed only eight wins from 33 Serie A matches this season. Niccolò Fortini, the 20-year-old Fiorentina defender, was not among the named starters — the confirmed line-up featured Albert Gudmundsson, Jack Harrison, and Dodo — leaving the youngest member of Vanoli's defensive options watching from the periphery of a fixture that carried genuine survival weight.
That peripheral status is the defining tension of Fortini's 2025-26 campaign. Across 16 Serie A appearances, the born-2006 left-sided defender has contributed zero goals and zero assists, carrying an average match rating of 6.70 — functional, but not the kind of number that forces a coach's hand in a relegation battle. His AI overall score of 49 out of 100 reflects a player still assembling the tools of his trade, though a potential ceiling of 68 suggests the raw material is credible.
Paolo Vanoli, speaking after the Lecce draw, noted that "the Fiorentina of the past would have lost" this kind of game — a pointed remark about mentality that cuts both ways for a squad sitting 15th on 36 points. Fiorentina's goal difference of minus seven (38 scored, 45 conceded across 33 matches) underlines that defensive solidity remains the club's most pressing structural problem, and it is precisely the area where Fortini must eventually make his case.
Harrison's equaliser — cancelled out by Tiago Gabriel's response for Lecce — meant Fiorentina left Puglia with a point rather than three. With 12 draws already banked this season, Vanoli's side has a habit of not losing that has kept them afloat, but eight wins in 33 matches is not a foundation; it is a holding pattern.
For Fortini, the path forward runs directly through that defensive fragility. A team conceding at the rate Fiorentina has cannot afford to leave young defenders in permanent reserve. The question is whether his 6.70 average rating across 16 matches is enough to persuade Vanoli he is ready to be part of the solution rather than a contingency.
At 20, with five matches remaining to make an impression, Fortini's 2025-26 season will be remembered less for what he did and more for what it prepared him to do.