It is not often that we talk in effusive terms about a player who is well past 29 years of age. But that is precisely the case with Fiorentina midfielder Marco Marchionni, who has been simply stellar in the last month or so, scoring 4 goals in 3 games and adding an assist to boot.

In Juventus’ Champions League trashing of Hungary's Debreceni VSC yesterday (5:2), Marchionni added 12.61 rating points to capture the 2nd spot in the FTBL ranking of Italian midfielders, behind only AC Milan’s more established star Andrea Pirlo. Marchionni is in ideal position to capture the leadership in that ranking: in his next 3 games he will have a plank of less than 13 rating points to beat, while Pirlo will need to clear a hurdle of approximately 37 points!

Yet, the change in the leadership in our ranking of Italian midfielders is unlikely to take place next week, and that is because Fiorentina are scheduled to travel to Udinese, where they have not won a single league game in the past three years.