0‑3 to Fiorentina, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Faustino Anjorin and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Torino told Saúl Coco something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Faustino Anjorin has his answer from Torino; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Torino told Saúl Coco something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Fiorentina in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
7.23, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
11 combined actions and 6.68. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sebastiano Baraldi after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Cesare Casadei scored, was marked 7.81, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Torino asked and Standard Liege said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 8.33 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Torino, another week without a signature from Gvidas Gineitis.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Duván Zapata
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Torino, and it is not being withdrawn.
The phone has started ringing about Alberto Paleari again, and this time the name on the line is Bologna. Torino are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alessandro Dellavalle was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Torino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Pietro Pellegri is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Torino will quote 20 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Torino can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AC Milan have kept their man, and Torino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Luis Sinisterra is on it.
In brief
The dugoutDuván Zapata knocks on the manager's door
Sassuolo paid $19.1M and Torino took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Latina had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Torino offered $11.3M; Cosenza said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Zakaria Aboukhlal has gone, the accounts have $19.1M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The offer went to Frosinone this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Torino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Duván Zapata again, and this time the name on the line is Udinese. Torino are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Torino heard it as anything else.
Che Adams was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Torino can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Torino have gone to Atalanta with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from Sassuolo for Duván Zapata was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Torino, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Torino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Torino heard it as anything else.
Add another name to the list: Bologna have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alberto Paleari. The answer from Torino has not changed — yet.
Cristiano Biraghi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Torino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Devyne Rensch is on it.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Inter.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.80 for the rest of it.
Something was said to Franculino and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Sebastiano Baraldi left the room before anybody could ask which.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Torino pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
7.59, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Torino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luis Sinisterra wants continental football; whether Torino can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Marked 7.63. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Devyne Rensch's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Torino and a story that will outlast his contract.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Torino can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Torino heard it as anything else.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Torino has been clear about where Ardian Ismajli stands, which is more than many ever get.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rafael Melo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Juventus on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Torino told Duván Zapata something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $30.7M has been paid because Franculino is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Torino have paid $15.3M for Luis Sinisterra, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Torino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Saúl Coco scored, was marked 6.22, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
Torino spend $30.7M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $30.7M for Franculino, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
In brief
SquadWords at Torino training over how hard people work
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Torino has been clear about where Adrien Tamèze stands, which is more than many ever get.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Torino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The offer from Rosario Central for Giovanni Simeone was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
1 for Kian Fitz-Jim, marked 7.80, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
15 combined actions and 6.74. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Saúl Coco, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sandro Kulenović is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Sebastiano Baraldi left the room before anybody could ask which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Saúl Coco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Andrea Luongo is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Saúl Coco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Devyne Rensch’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Torino needing him to play as if none of it matters.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 7.16, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Sebastiano Baraldi left the room before anybody could ask which.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Torino has been clear about where Saúl Coco stands, which is more than many ever get.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Torino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Torino told Devyne Rensch something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Torino has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
A side in position 5 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Lucas Perri
“I watch every Torino game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Cagliari runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Torino has been clear about where Gvidas Gineitis stands, which is more than many ever get.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Sebastiano Baraldi to a room that had heard them before.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tiago Codinha and Torino agree another 5 years.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Lucas Perri
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sebastiano Baraldi was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Torino dressing room was either.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Torino heard it as anything else.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sebastiano Baraldi after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Successful dribbles: 13. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Torino close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 5 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Torino hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kawasaki Frontale have kept their man, and Torino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Pietro Comuzzo is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Torino will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ricardo Rodríguez is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Pietro Comuzzo is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Alberto Paleari is still in the building
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Che Adams had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Cagliari waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Torino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Still no offer on the table, and Che Adams’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Add another name to the list: AZ have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nikola Vlašić. The answer from Torino has not changed — yet.
The offer from EA Guingamp for Adrien Tamèze was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Torino hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Cristiano Biraghi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.