Il Granata della Porta Accanto/ If Cairo’s ambition were the same as Buongiorno’s, today we would be talking about a team truly capable of sitting at the big table and rekindling the fans’ imagination
Together with Raoul Bellanova there is a Granata player who is involved with the national team at the European Championship in Germany: he is Alessandro Buongiorno, the player who more than any other today represents for the Granata people not only the ideal captain, but more globally the prototype of player that every fan would like to see wearing the Torino shirt. Turin, Turin supporter, born and raised with the grenade as a second skin, Buongiorno is the symbol of something that was there and today, unfortunately, is almost no longer there: the flag player. We hoped so strongly when Belotti seemed destined to stay with us forever and perhaps one day beat Pulici’s goalscoring record, but then, in a silence that still continues to make noise today, Gallo left as if everything the love that the Granata people had showered on him in tons counted for nothing.
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In those days of anger mixed with melancholy we still didn’t know that the most beautiful flower was blooming in all its prodigious magnificence: the canterano who was gradually carving out his honest space in the first team, would shortly thereafter combine two fantastic seasons that would have made him the “de facto” captain of the team (although the armband formally remained on the arm of the irreproachable Rodriguez) and the absolute idol of the Marathon. This year’s European Championships, although in the first match Spalletti kept him on the bench by choosing Calafiori as a left-sided centre-back, represent a well-deserved showcase for Buongiorno, but also a rather dangerous one in terms of staying in the granata shirt. A possible and entirely desirable exploit of our youth player would in fact attract the interests of many clubs, including foreign ones, fueling an auction to secure the services of this very solid player. Obviously everyone in the Granata world would like Buongiorno to stay at Torino with perhaps the exception of just one person who would get a nice nest egg from selling him to straighten out the club’s accounts.
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We are talking about the president who never misses an opportunity to underline the fact that he would be very happy for Buongiorno to remain in Turin, knowing however that the sirens for the Turin centre-back are already ringing loudly both from Italy and abroad. In fact, there is persistent talk of strong pressure on the player from Napoli, on whose bench Antonio Conte will sit, and of a request from Turin of no less than 40 million. If on the one hand Cairo flaunts eternal love for Buongiorno, on the other he listens with great interest to all the offers for his jewel, formally putting the burden of a possible sale on Buongiorno’s side, strong in the certainty that such a capital gain would almost definitively settle the company balance sheet. The famous Atalanta model would in fact involve one or two painful sales every season which is usually followed by the reinvestment of such proceeds in other young talents to generate new and even richer capital gains. If the Granata fan were certain that their president also followed this model perhaps, and I say perhaps because in reality this is not what a good portion of fans aspire to, they would reluctantly accept losing players they are very fond of. The problem is that this modus operandi is not in the custom of Torino FC and is not a process even remotely encouraged by its owner.
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Rarely, in fact, and history proves it, have the proceeds of important sales made by Cairo’s Torino been directly invested in profiles that guaranteed the same sporting performances and as many margins for new capital gains, with the exception of Schuurs, who arrived following the sale of Bremer , by Bellanova for Singo and perhaps by Ilic for Lukic. It is therefore clear that, regardless of the exceptions, there is a tendency to trust presidential promises very little. The optimistic survey to which Cairo often refers, the one according to which 75% of the fans love him, is certainly unrealistic because in reality the majority of Granata fans are rather disappointed by the “un-Granade” behavior of our president. How can you still not be done with the new coach when it was known for months that if the person chosen to replace Juric was Vanoli there would be a clause to pay? Why don’t we have the courage to say that Buongiorno will be sold or, on the contrary, do we not have the strength to decisively remove him from the market by assuming we can build a team around tomorrow’s captain capable of fighting for a place in Europe? How do you get to the age that Urbano Cairo has reached and not imagine wanting to leave a mark in the history of Torino after 19 years of substantial little cabotage?
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Today’s Torino is in fact a racing car kept in the garage by its owner which, when used, is never really pushed to its maximum power. Who can blame Buongiorno if with the same rankings (Toro and Napoli finished the championship with the same points, outside of the Cups) the Turin centre-back were to choose Conte’s Azzurri because they are capable of proposing a decidedly more ambitious sporting project? If Cairo’s ambition were the same as Buongiorno’s (and that of many other valuable players who before him left Turin to seek glory elsewhere) today we would be talking about a team capable of truly sitting at the big table and rekindling the fans’ imagination. However, this is not the case, and as always we fans will have to swallow bitter pills to find ourselves at the same point as before, if not worse. Is it so difficult to understand why we live in a climate of more or less latent and permanent protest given that the dynamics of this society never seem to change? So let’s enjoy Buongiorno (and Bellanova) at the European Championships, knowing full well that anything from Toro that shines in its own light will never generate that virtuous circle that we have been waiting for since Amsterdam. Or at least this is what the last 19 years of management have always shown us.
Long time Toro News commentator, dor voice to the fan next door chand it is in each of us. Graduated in Economics, writing has always been my passion even if it never became my job. Toro fan to the core, optimistic to the bitter end, in life a tackle is better than a back heel. Motto: it’s not over until it’s not over.
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