Tomorrow Turin football celebrates its 118 years of sporting life while from today Urbano Cairo enters history because he has become the longest-serving president of the club. Two anniversaries that fall in one of the darkest moments of the club, which reached its lowest level of approval with the team that on Sunday collected its eighth defeat in the last ten matches (we also count the home defeat against Empoli which marked the elimination of the Granata from the Italian Cup). A technical and results decline which, statistics in hand, only means relegation to Serie B.
Urban Cairo in the early years, when he still had the consent of the Granata people on his side and enjoyed changing sports directors and coaches as if they were socks, would have long ago sacked the coach Paolo Vanoli, who had been heavily torn away from Venezia post promotion, complete with penalty paid. Now, perhaps because he is aware of having provided him with a weaker and more disorganized team than the one that last year, with Juric on the bench, missed the finish line in the Conference League by a hair, Cairo cannot afford to oust Vanoli unless new and further upheavals that may arise from the next two away matches against Genoa and Empoli.
Theoretically, the club’s objective is to try to score some useful points to move up the rankings and hope to reach the January transfer market to strengthen the team. The fact is that, beyond the efforts that Vanoli makes during the week to prepare a decent formation to then deploy on the pitch, the players no longer get one right. The latest clear example is that of Coco who against Napoli, instead of scoring with his eyes closed, having the entire opponent’s goal at his disposal, knelt awkwardly on the ball as if he were a monk seal. Only at Toro can you see these horror scenes.
Perhaps an exorcist would be needed to give some life back to these athletes who are even unlearning the profession for which they are handsomely paid. Players who – another difficult mystery to solve – are regularly called up by their respective national teams and who instead in Turin spend their time warming the bench or, at most, play half a match only to then be replaced due to excessive mediocrity. It is therefore difficult to understand to what extent the coach is really responsible and who, from his point of view, is really trying everything to find a solution.
For their part, the Granata people are currently cultivating only one hope: that Cairo will pack his bags as soon as possible, after having said that he is willing to sell the club to someone richer and better than him, and that ownership will actually arrive who knows how to give back to Toro, first of all, dignity and pride, values that have been trampled on so many times in recent years. We’ll think about the results next time.