A question for Serie-A followers and historians.
I've often wondered why Torino have never been able to recover after the Superga disaster. At that stage of course they were the most successful football club in Italy. I know they won the Title again once more in the 70s but - unlike Man United after Munich - they never recaptured their prestige, their status or their competitiveness. They seem to be constantly fighting relegation and playing in front of paltry crowds. They share a city with Juventus of course, but other big cities in Italy (and Europe) often host two great clubs. Not Turin though. Not anymore. Any theories?
It's an interesting one, for sure. I think really, when you look at Torino's history, I think you could look at them more like a City to Utd or an Everton to us, sharing a city but massively in their shadow (barring oil takeover like City).
Of course, the Agnelli's bought Juve in the 20s, so it's not like they suddenly started injecting money (they did this big time in the 50s and 60s before increasing that spending astronomically in the 70s and 80s through to the modern era) but they've always been a bigger draw, and honestly, in the last 30 years, the Seven Sisters (Juve, Milan, Inter, Parma, Roma, Fiorentina and Lazio have all been bigger draws, leaving Torino to battle with the smaller Italian clubs for players - Napoli, Atalanta, Udinese and Genoa have all at times also represented a better move for players) have had the pick of players in Italy and bringing stars from abroad into the league.
Because of the above, they've then struggled to attract talent consistently - look at Torino's teams since their last great one, and it's often some two or three good players on their way to bigger things, surrounded by journeymen. That trauma from Superga can't be dimished either, and that it links to their glory days seems to indelibly stain all happy memories of what Torino once were - they are very much pre and post disaster as far as their history goes. These days, they have a fervent support but struggle to even get 20,000 through the gate. As such, the support and the money isn't really their to make them great again and they're not massively commercially viable either, compared to their neighbours or the other big Italian clubs. They had that magnificent Scudetto in the 70s alongside some impressive placings, but the team declined as more foreign stars reinforced the teams around them and after a promising start to the 90s, they were soon in Serie B and insolvent. They recovered back to Serie A and even Europe but were being relegated again in the early 2000s (maybe 2004?) and then upon reemergence were denied reentry to Serie A due to bankruptcy.
Essentially, I wouldn't say they were ever big or rich enough to be able to preserve things when they did have a great team. They have been to the Europa League a few times since the turn of the century, but financial mismanagement, nutter owners, poor squad decisions and waning interest in the team from locals (imagine young fans in Turin choosing who to support in the late 90s through to present day from their city) all combined to make them one of those sides who have past glories that may never be repeated. The Italian media also has it out for them - the typical hard left-leaning sensibilities of the fanbase (they've been known to fly Cuba flags) has meant that they've been an easy target for the Italian media and a lot of Northern and Southern sides now dislike Torino as a result. They're seen as anti-establishment, but the wrong sort of anti-establishment - they've had links to hardline Basque separatist groups like ETA and have at times been painted as a near-terrorist organisation in the more frenzied Italian magazines.
Look at their record fees - they've never exceeded Ł16m for a transfer (Simone Verdi, where they paid I think roughly Ł2m for a loan, then Ł12m further structured over 4 seasons of his contract) and where they have 'splached out' by their standards, it's been for younger players with resale value to fatten them up for sale (Immobile, Niang etc). They have massive squad churn every year nearly and every time they have an exciting property - they're sold. Zappacosta, Maksimovic, Immobile, Darmian, Niang, Ogbonna, Bonfazi, Glik, Benassi etc the list goes on. All decent level players sold either prematurely or for average fees. They don't know how to do a deal and they reinvest poorly too. Barring Zappacosta I think you have to go back to the great Gigi Lentini in the early 90s to pick out the last time you'd say Torino did brilliantly fee-wise on a sale.
As with many clubs malaise, it's a cocktail of legacy issues and longstanding problems with a lack of financial muscle that has held them back and means that at present, they'd likely snap your hand off to just stay in Serie A this season. It's sad because in my eyes they're properly iconic, but Il Grande Torino seem no more. Their own City doesn't seem to love them, most of Italy dislikes them (other than when it comes to the Derby v Juve) and Cairo doesn't seem to be the ideal owner at present.
