It would be hard to romanticise the last Turin derby. There were usual tasteless chants, some of them about the ‘Superga’ tragedy, the 1949 air crash that cost the lives of most of a great Torino squad.
There were missiles thrown in the Torino arena, including an exploding paper bomb that left nine people nursing injuries.
This is not a fixture the Piedmontese police much look forward to.
But amid the fury of six months ago, those Torino supporters who had steered clear of the menace around the occasion took home a rare and exciting souvenir – their team had won, and done so for the first time in a Serie A meeting with their neighbours for two decades. The 2-1 win delayed Juventus’s march to their fourth successive title.
READ MORE:
– AS Roma ‘alive and well’ and in scudetto pole position after Maicon heroics
– Former Fiorentina hero Mohamed Salah adds spark to Roma atop Serie A table
If Torino repeat that success at Juve’s stadium on Saturday afternoon, they will probably have removed any realistic prospect of Juventus making it five ‘scudetti’ – Italian championships – on the trot.
The less-celebrated club from the city currently look down on the champions from a distance of three points ahead after 10 matches and peer at them from a different half of the table.
Torino are 10th, Juve sit 12th, perplexed, frustrated and increasingly despairing over a plummet in form, at least domestically, that is as dramatic as any in the major leagues of Europe.
Granted, Juve have a point more than Chelsea, the English champions who have badly mislaid their previous efficiency.
But then Chelsea cannot count back their habit of dominating their division all the way back to 2011. After Juventus lost for the fourth time in the league on Wednesday – a 1-0 defeat to Sassuolo – manager Massimiliano Allegri conceded “there were no excuses”.
The alibis for a possible shaky start he had brought into the season with him – namely the summer departures of three towering individuals, midfielders Andrea Pirlo and Arturo Vidal, and striker Carlos Tevez – do not justify the extent of the apparent decline.
Not especially when it is set against the higher standards last season’s runners-up in the Uefa Champions League are maintaining in Europe, where Juve top a group including Manchester City and Sevilla.
That inconsistency leaves senior players vexed. Gigi Buffon, the goalkeeper and captain, said he felt “shocked” leaving Sassuolo, and he sensed how grave the management deemed the situation when they announced the squad would spend an extra day isolated in a hotel to prepare for the Turin derby.
Juventus do not tend to corral their players together even in tough times. That is more the jittery style of Inter or AC Milan.
“Against Sassuolo, it was not the true Juve,” veteran Juventus full-back Patrice Evra said.
He implied that, in the absence of the experienced Pirlo, Vidal and Tevez, others growing into their first-team roles needed to mature fast.
“It may be that certain players are not aware of how much they must respect the Juve jersey. I think it’s good idea to go into ‘retiro’ – gather in the hotel – early,” the Frenchman said.
“We all have families. But if the coach thinks this may help to understand the great sense of responsibility you carry when playing for Juventus, then it’s right. Juve are not a club who should be winning one, then losing, then coming back and then falling again.
“This is not a yo-yo club. Clubs like this have to believe in winning the championship every year.”
At 11 points behind leaders Roma already, that belief hangs by a thread. Yet Evra continues to have faith in his teammates.
“I am still convinced we can make that fifth ‘scudetto’, though at the moment we are in danger of throwing away a historic opportunity,” he said.
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
