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By Zach Lowy
Back then, Torino were in hot pursuit of a second-straight league title and their eighth Scudetto, but they would quickly relinquish first place and finish one point behind Juventus. In the following 47 years, Juventus have won 19 league titles, while Torino have experienced more relegations to Serie B (four) than major trophies (one – the 1992/93 Coppa Italia).
You’d have to go back 33 years for the last time that Torino finished above seventh, but today, they sit fifth in the table, level on 11 points with Milan and Inter, and one behind Juventus. What’s more, they’re on pace to end the season with 63 goals, their highest tally since 2016/17, when they registered 71 thanks in large part to Andrea Belotti’s 26-goal haul. Since then, Torino have not scored over 54 goals, whilst last season’s tally of 36 was the fourth-lowest in Serie A.
When (the now Roma boss) Ivan Jurić arrived in 2021, Torino had conceded a whopping 137 goals over the previous two seasons, narrowly avoiding relegation both times. He quickly stabilized the ship – between 2021/22 and 2023/24, they finished 10th, 10th, and 9th, conceding 118 goals and scoring 124. However, his belligerent communication style eventually grew toxic as Torino tifosi continued to wait in vain for a first appearance in a UEFA competition main draw since 2014/15. After mustering just two wins from their last eight matches, the writing was on the wall for Jurić.
Enter: Paolo Vanoli. Having commenced his coaching career with Italy’s youth teams, Vanoli served as Antonio Conte’s assistant from 2016 to 2021, adding a Premier League title and a Scudetto to his résumé before accepting his first managerial role in December 2021. Vanoli needed just five months to guide Spartak Moscow to their first trophy since 2017, but he stepped down from his position just 11 days after winning the Russian Cup. It didn’t take long before he found a new gig, taking charge of a Venezia side that looked headed for a second-straight relegation.
Vanoli quickly arrested the slide with three wins from his first five, guiding them to eighth place and a spot in the promotion playoffs, where they lost to Cagliari in the first round. The following season, Venezia pulled off one of the most unlikely promotions in Serie B’s recent history by finishing third and brushing past Palermo and Cremonese en route to a top-flight berth. Rather than continue building his project in La Serenissima, Vanoli joined Torino, a team that found itself quickly growing apart from its supporters.
Between the constant middle-of-the-road finishes and having to watch crosstown rivals Juve dominate Italy, life as a Torino fan is no walk in the park. That chasm grew even more on May 4, the 75th anniversary of the Superga air disaster which saw Torino’s entire football team killed in a plane crash. As the fans poured into the stadium to pay tribute, Torino goalkeeper Luca Gemello recorded a video from the team bus and posted an Instagram story in which several players were heard disparaging their supporters: “They are the same ones who booed you,” “bye, bye pieces of s**t,” and more.
After kicking off the 2024/25 season with a 2-0 win vs. Cosenza in the cup, Torino were cruising to another 2-0 victory at the San Siro only to concede twice to Milan in the final minutes of their league opener. On the cusp of their next match vs. Atalanta, Torino supporters flooded the streets and demanded Urbano Cairo to sell the club. Cairo took the reins in 2005, when Torino’s bankruptcy prevented them from ascending to Serie A despite a second-place finish, and he will surpass Orfeo Pianelli as the longest-serving president in club history on 2 December.
“Cairo is criticized, above all, for his lack of ambition, his desire to always sell the best players, and for never having brought Torino – in 19 years – to the next level,” said Diego Fornero, a journalist for Toro News, the leading online newspaper dedicated to Torino. “He is also criticized for not having invested in the long term: a stadium that they don’t even own, very poor facilities, a youth training centre that has been under construction for several years and still hasn’t been completed.”
The mass protests came in the waning days of a summer window that saw Torino lose three key pillars of a defence that kept 18 clean sheets (second to Inter’s 21) – Ricardo Rodriguez (free), Raoul Bellanova (€20m), and Alessandro Buongiorno (€35m). Even Vanoli could not hide his displeasure following Bellanova’s departure to Atalanta: “I told Cairo to his face what I think. I don’t like mediocrity, and I want the club to have more courage and achieve their full potential.”
Despite falling behind early on, Vanoli’s men stormed back to a 2-1 victory against Atalanta before escaping with a 1-0 win at Venezia via Saúl Coco’s 86th-minute goal. They returned from the break with a goalless stalemate vs. Lecce before prevailing 3-2 at Hellas Verona – over the next two days, Juventus, Napoli and Inter all succumbed to draws, enabling Torino to ascend to the zenith of Italian football for the first time in a half-century. However, their reign on the top was short-lived after losing back-to-back home matches to Empoli in the cup and Lazio in the league.
“There are two big differences between Jurić and Vanoli: Jurić asked for a full-pitch pressing that worked well at the beginning but soon lost effectiveness, whilst Vanoli asks for a more collective and orderly game,” said Fornero. “The second is in communication: Jurić had a brazen style and often took it out on the fans or the board to hide from his own responsibilities. Vanoli has a different approach, decisive but calm, and he analyzes performances very lucidly.”
Vanoli has demonstrated his adaptability by eschewing his tried-and-tested 4-3-3 in favor of the 3-5-2 formation that has been a mainstay at Torino for the past decade. He’s been able to punch above the odds and steer them to the European places, but his biggest test will arrive on Saturday as Torino face an Inter side that has scored seven goals in their last two matches. Torino have lost nine of their last 10 meetings with Inter, whilst they haven’t beaten them at the San Siro since April 2016. Can they shock the defending champions and continue their stellar start to the campaign?
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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