Juventus-Turin, two fixed. The Day of the Marmot of the grenades

There is a Groundhog Day that plagues the fans of the Turin at least once a year, generally on the occasion of the derby played at home, in a stadium with a grenade cap in a moving and noteworthy way even from a pathological point of view, given the disproportion between so much support and the sporting results of the last thirty years. A stadium that bears the name of the legends led by Valentino Mazzola and eighty years later is reduced to exalted by Valentino Lazaro’s resistible snatches which, when it goes well, lead to a corner in favor (but be careful not to take the counterattack).

This Day of the Groundhog was repeated punctually yesterday and we report the details in the crudest way possible, that is with the cold results. 2007-08 season: Turin-Juventus 0-1 (94 ‘Trezeguet). 2008-09 season: Turin-Juventus 0-1 (80 ‘Chiellini). 2013-14 season: Turin-Juventus 0-1 (54 ‘Pogba). 2018-19 season: 0-1 (70 ‘penalty Ronaldo). 2019-20 season: Turin-Juventus 0-1 (70 ‘De Ligt). 2021-22 season: Turin-Juventus 0-1 (86 ‘Locatelli). 2022-23 season: Turin-Juventus 0-1 (73 ‘Vlahovic). Continuing the comparison with the famous American comedy set in the pleasant town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, who is the Bill Murray of the situation?

Since the story now covers a 15-year narrative arc, we must go by exclusion and put the spotlight on the only one that has always been there: Urbano Cairo, owner of this An increasingly shrunken bull, which by now renounces to have an offensive phase, indeed it does without the attackersunless you want to consider Pietro Pellegri, the most consumed 21-year-old that there is: the highest moment of his 25 minutes was grabbing the ball with both hands in general confusion, believing that the referee Mariani had sanctioned him a do it on offense, when the whistle came from the stands. Torino in Cairo admirably continues to lose home derbies 0-1 whatever Juventus facesboth the stellar one of the nine consecutive league titles and the mess without rhyme or reason that he let himself be humiliated in Haifa five days ago and instead, without overdoing it, yesterday found the ancient ringworm and won deservedly, if we have to stay in arid accounting of chances and the fact that Milinkovic-Savic was the best in the field.

But we have written about Juventus many times and many other times we will write: instead it is a much more stimulating journalistic exercise to write down a few lines on this inconceivable Turin, which eliminates saliva and is capable of mortifying, with its repeated and ostentatious long throws into the void. , any attempt at creative literature. Poor Juric, who has long since put aside his anger to embrace a healthier resignation, was awarded a squad with only one true center forward at the beginning of the season (Sanabria, not exactly Lewandowski, so much so that he hasn’t scored at home since January) . We have already said about Pellegri; Zaza is missing, and being Zaza no one misses him even now. The management did not feel the need to replace Belotti at least numerically, when even Sassuolo, who do not have to answer to anyone but the pockets of the owners, took care to replace Scamacca with two new first strikers. The deceptive start – nine points against the three newly promoted companies still in the process of settling down – unleashed the bass drum of the president’s publishing group, obviously starting with the Gazzetta dello Sport. A bass drum that now greatly irritates the entire grenade fans also because it is conducted with tones a little bit from Borgorosso Football Club, between bombastic statements (Ricardo Rodriguez a few weeks ago: “In my role I am one of the three best players in Italy”) and absurd publisher-editorials: memorable the one published during the last break in which the Turin squad, capable of thirteen national teams, was magnified, including Pellegri (in Under 21, where obviously he broke up) and Seck.

The Gazzetta is the only object linked to the grenade that still has its own progressive calendar, because everything else is frozen motionless in a huge Saturday of the village on the contrary that culminates in the usual derby lost at 6 in the afternoon or at 9 in the evening. Almost always in the last half hour, often following a free kick like yesterday or in 2019 (De Ligt’s goal), a fatal distraction, a sleepiness that you know will come, you feel it in your gut, when the clock passes game time and every ball becomes hot. The Torino fans know it will happen; and it happens punctually, sometimes even in more grotesque circumstances than yesterday (the derby lost by Giampaolo, dominated until the 75th minute and then lost in an unprecedented way), in an asphyxiating vicious circle. Torino scores goals from 25 consecutive derbies: in the history of the four great Italian derbies, there is no such long streak.

Removed the points with the newly promoted of which we have already mentioned, the other two – collected in seven days – are the result of two internal draws against Lazio and Empoli, the latter caught in the 90 ‘thanks to a flank shot by the former captain Lukic, degraded after the scuffle at the end of the market. The points average does not seem encouraging, even if at least defense and midfield have qualities that should keep Toro safe from the fight so as not to retreat. But isn’t this eternal living between eleventh and fifteenth place worse, losing nine big matches out of ten, often due to athletic wear of the owners and lack of alternatives on the bench? When was this team’s last day as a Taurus? Turin is also stripped of its soul, I don’t say Philadelphia, but at least Italian: the last two games against Empoli and Juventus were also the first in the history of the city with eleven foreign players out of eleven, also thanks to the injury of the excellent director Ricci ( one of the few good shots of the last two years) and the tarnishing of the young defender Buongiorno. So we end up playing a derby with Miranchuk, Vlasic and Radonjic, three half shoes distinguishable only vaguely, some with the head of the World Cup, some already at the end of the loan like last year’s half shoes. The antithesis of any meaningful discourse has ever been made on Torino proper, just yesterday that were 55 years after the death of Gigi Meroni, a week before Toro played and won the most heart-wrenching derby in its history 4-0. Well, it may be that we have not yet learned to appreciate Ricardo Rodriguez’s diagonals or Lukic and Linetty’s vision of the game. Or maybe we’re just too old.