Torino: Urbano Cairo versus the Rest
Torino fans were decidedly less optimistic than their Bianconeri counterparts ahead of the new campaign, and ten games into the 24/25 season, i Granata have already been through the emotional ringer.
They enjoyed one glorious week at the top of the table, immediately followed by a four game losing streak and a swift return to more familiar mid-table surroundings.
During that run, their captain and attacking focal point was also ruled out for the season. Throw in a president seemingly doing everything in his power to sabotage the team and rumours of a Red Bull takeover, and you’ve almost got a season’s worth of drama, all condensed into the first ten matchdays.
Back in the summer months, there were quite a few comings and goings at the Stadio Olimpico. Most of them, much like this year’s unseasonably cold and wet September and October, didn’t inspire much enthusiasm.
Media tycoon and club president, Urbano Cairo, is universally detested by the Torino fanbase. Toro fans would have loved to see the back of him but, unfortunately, he’s stuck around.
He’s always quick to sell top players and unwilling to invest in adequate replacements. The fans see his management as an affront to the proud history and spirit of Torino FC. In their eyes, Torino is just another business investment to Cairo, and he has no sporting ambition whatsoever.
The Curva Maratona is where the ultras station themselves on matchdays and lead the constant chorus of support for the boys on the pitch. “Cairo, Cairo, vaffanculo”, and “Urbano Cairo, vattene”, are amongst the most common chants, sung weekly, without fail from all corners of the stadium.
They’re two short and easy chants to join in with but there are no questions over the fans’ genuine desire to see the man gone.
Toro announced Paolo Vanoli as their new manager to replace Ivan Juric this summer. Vanoli had just gained promotion to Serie A with Venezia, and had previously served as Antonio Conte’s assistant at Chelsea and Inter – no doubt a great coach to work with and learn from – but there was some trepidation over his lack of top flight experience, despite his work in Serie B with Venezia.
Still, there was hope he would bring some much needed dynamism to a side who were badly in need of it.
Centre-back, local boy and captain-in-waiting, Alessandro Buongiorno, was sold to Napoli for €35m. No small amount of money, but disproportionately low for one of Italy's most highly-rated defenders.
Ricardo Rodriguez, club captain, was released when his contract ran out, as was solid but slightly injury-prone centre-back, Koffi Djidji. Defensive reinforcements were needed, so Torino bought two thirty-something backup goalkeepers. Yep.
Then an actual defender arrived, Saul Coco from Las Palmas. Not a household name by any means, but at least an amusing one that gave supporters something to smile about. Later on came the arrivals of two burly centre-backs, Sebastian Walukiewicz and Guillermo Maripán.
An elderly man in front of me told me that in 60 years of watching Torino, never had he seen a Granata side play so well.
The wings were also in need of freshening up, so in came Marcus Pedersen from Feyenoord and Borna Sosa from Ajax, both on loan deals.
Fans were rightly pleased when Duván Zapata joined permanently following his loan from Atalanta, but at 34, he can’t do it all himself and needed some support, so an unlikely – but most importantly, free – attacker was brought in. Che Adams. Interesting.
Toro started the new campaign with a 2-2 draw against Milan, although they’d been 2-0 up until the 89th minute. The late collapse showed some defensive frailty, but there were also encouraging signs; backheels, dinks and dummies, passes around the corner and most of all, they were creating actual chances, something they’d done very sporadically over the last few years.
Cairo, like any good villain, must have sensed too much positivity in the air, despite the healthy amount of criticism on social media over blowing a 2-0 lead. So what did he do? He sold another one of Torino’s young and exciting Italian internationals, wing-back Raoul Bellanova to Atalanta for €20m.
Without consulting Vanoli of course. And just days before the end of the transfer window. Cue 15,000 fans assembling for a protest march to the stadium, calling for Cairo’s head.
Vanoli earned himself some more brownie points after the sale of Bellanova by announcing he hadn’t been informed about the transfer in advance, and that he had told Cairo exactly what he thought about it. This public criticism of Cairo really put him in the fans’ good books, and showed character to boot.
Torino vs Atalanta was a fantastic match which I was lucky enough to watch from the Curva Maratona. Great attacking play from both sides, clearances off the line, double saves, shots hitting the woodwork, and a comeback from Torino to make it 2-1 having gone behind. There was some last minute VAR drama to top it all off, and a penalty awarded to Atalanta which to the surprise of many, Torino’s keeper, Vanja Milinkovic-Savic saved.
As the post-save hugging bled into the post-final whistle celebrations, an elderly man in front of me told me that in 60 years of watching Torino, never had he seen a Granata side play so well.
He wasn’t the only one starting to believe either. There was a real sense of optimism growing among the fans. Che Adams was being praised for his all-action style and physicality.
For years it had been something they’d endured, but now it was becoming something they enjoyed.
Ivan Ilic and Valentino Lazaro had both awoken from the slumber they played through last season, and were linking the midfield to the attack with style. Saul Coco was quickly winning over the fans by virtue of the assuredness and solidity he brought to the backline.
The third game of the season – away to Venezia – brought another win, albeit in less joyous fashion, as Saul Coco headed home from a corner to score the only goal in the 88th minute.
Torino only managed a scoreless draw away to Lecce after the first international break before securing a fairly comfortable win away to Hellas Verona, which sent Torino top. A shock Milan victory in the Derby della Madonnina and a stinker of a 0-0 draw between Juve and Napoli meant that Torino stayed top for a full week.
It’s foolish to read too much into the league table this early but this was the first time in 47 years that Toro occupied top spot alone. Ok, it was only five games in, but Vanoli was getting the best out of the players. They were showing hunger. Grinta. They were attacking effectively.
More fans flocked to Stadio Olimpico each week to watch this transformation. For years it had been something they’d endured, but now it was becoming something they enjoyed. But as we well know, when something seems too good to be true, it very often is.
Torino were sitting pretty at the top, unbeaten after five games. Life was unexpectedly good. Then came the bumps in the road.
First, they lost at home in the last minute against Empoli in Coppa Italia. Toro’s defensive efforts were far too lax in their next game against Lazio, opposing attackers finding themselves in comfortable amounts of space.
That game did end with a spectacular overhead kick from Saul Coco, which put some respectability on the scoreline (Lazio won 3-2), but it was a performance below the standards set in the opening weeks.
They lost to Inter next, 3-2 again, after an early Maripán red card put them under pressure. Much more concerning, however, was captain Duván Zapata going off with a nasty injury. It was announced afterwards that he had done his ACL. Surgery required, season over. Captain, leader and main attacking threat gone. Things were really starting to unravel. The international break was much more welcome this time around.
If these bumps in the road had thrown Torino off course, then they were about to find themselves careening into the ditch.
They had Cagliari away next, a side who were yet to taste victory this season. Guess what? Cagliari came back from 2-1 down to win – you guessed it – 3-2. That made it three consecutive league defeats by the same scoreline.
A much-needed win came against the richest club in the land, Como, on 25 October. A bumper crowd at the Olimpico produced the finest example of booing and whistling a returning ex-player that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing first-hand.
Torino were already 1-0 up by the time Andrea Belotti – who scored exactly 100 Serie A goals for Torino while wearing the captain’s armband – came on, but the jeers didn’t spur him on to change the game.
Torino’s goal had come ten minutes earlier through their own substitute, youth team product Alieu Njie, who intercepted a weak back pass and rounded the ‘keeper to score his first senior goal.
At the other end, Vanja put in a fine display, making six big saves to ensure Torino saw the game through. Como were the better side on the night, but it didn't matter. The losing streak had been broken.
If these bumps in the road had thrown Torino off course, then they were about to find themselves careening into the ditch.
The next fixture couldn’t have come at a better time, away to Roma who were coming into the game off the back of a humiliating 6-1 loss to Fiorentina, and rumours were swirling of problems in the dressing room between some senior players and their new coach, Mr Ivan Juric.
Nonetheless, the home side managed a 1-0 win, courtesy of some truly awful defending allowing Paulo Dybala to score. After the game, an angry Vanoli said it was the worst his side had played all season. They had wasted the opportunity to build on the Como win against a vulnerable opponent, and get some momentum going again. Instead, another 1-0 loss to Fiorentina followed the Roma game.
Torino find themselves in 10th place with 11 games played. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The drop-off in form after their promising start has highlighted that the squad doesn’t have the strength in depth to sustain the kind of push that we saw in the first five gameweeks.
The defence is a problem that should have been sorted better in the summer. Last season, Toro had the fourth best defensive record in the league. Despite letting four starting defenders leave in the summer, and taking in €55 million in the process, Cairo only spent a paltry €14.5 million to shore up the backline, buying three players.
You don’t need to be an expert on catenaccio, or a mathematician, to understand that such business is not conducive to good results on the pitch. Dutchman Perr Schuurs will be a welcome addition at centre-back when he returns from the cruciate injury he suffered a year ago, although there is still no estimated timeline for his comeback.
The attack looked like it had improved since last year, as Che Adams made a good start to his Italian odyssey and the midfield players were getting forward more. But without Duván Zapata, things have looked a lot more blunt.
Everyone will be hoping that Alieu Njie can grab his chance and chip in with a few goals, but he’s still young and inexperienced, so it would be foolish to expect him to have anything like Zapata’s influence.
There was talk of signing a free agent as cover, with a certain M. Balotelli mentioned (no, that’s too obvious, let’s call him Mario B), but il mister ultimately decided to make do with the squad what they’ve got until January.
By then, Cairo will more than likely infuriate Aurelio Di Laurentiis with an insultingly low bid for Giovanni Simeone, and the club will be forced to hastily contact some of Europe’s aging, underperforming and wantaway strikers late in the window.
Maybe Ciro Immobile will have had enough of Istanbul by that stage. Aging? Yes. Underperforming? Definitely not. Wantaway? Let’s hope so. I’d take him in a heartbeat.
Criticism of Juric, Torino’s manager from 2021-24, was often tempered with the acknowledgement that the Croat could only do so much with the group of players at his disposal.
Those mediocre squads were a direct result of Cairo’s deathly tight grip on the purse strings, and the effects were visible in Torino’s league finishes under Juric: 10th, 10th and 9th. Over the last three seasons, they were the definition of mid-table and they often lacked any real spark in attack.
Although Vanoli appears – or at least, initially appeared – to be capable of squeezing more out of his frontline, he also has limited resources to work with, and the same president who seems to be conspiring against any kind of sporting progress.
Even if Cairo is working against him, Vanoli has got the vast majority of the fans on his side, and he has the respect of the dressing room too. The general feeling early on was that he’s the right man for the job and that Torino have done well to get him but the string of defeats has dampened spirits since then, naturally.
He showed that he’s capable of building up a head of steam, but if he’s to improve on Juric’s performances, his team will need to act more urgently to turn things around when it’s not going their way, and tighten up at the back.
The upcoming fixture list isn’t particularly kind, with the Derby della Mole up next for Toro. Juventus are very likely to inflict a third consecutive league defeat on their rivals, then Napoli come to town two a few weeks later.
There are ties against the likes of Empoli, Monza, Bologna and Udinese that they can definitely get something from. Vanoli really needs to take advantage of these games to achieve some stability in terms of results.
If he can steady the ship, then I still have faith that he can start to build something, with a few January signings. Without Cairo dipping his hands into his pockets and giving the manager what he needs, however, then Torino fans could well be in for another season of frustration.
