Until the 77th minute, Verona was mathematically safe, then came the trip of the former Juric.
Verona needs 3 points for mathematical salvation, Torino plays its last chips for Europe: It was the Granata who came back with goals from the young Savva and Pellegri, overcoming Swiderwski’s initial lead, and it was a victory resulting from just 6′ in which the game changed hands, after everything suggested a celebration of the hosts. Verona saw the salvation victory up close, because until the 77th minute they were in the lead and would certainly have won the match on points: the frost falls on the Bentegodi, and the final assault, complete with Henry’s goal disallowed, is of little use , because to stay in Serie A the Scaligeri will still have to fight. The former Juric had asked his Torino several times to win dirty matches, perhaps less “deserved”: his team, ironically, after a championship in which they failed to do so, are doing so today, probably on the field and against his coach’s closest opponent.
Torino has often been accused of lacking cynicism, but today that just can’t be done: 2 goals from 2 shots on target for the Granata, who took home 3 points in a match in which frankly they wouldn’t have deserved any, as partial compensation for the many times this season the opposite has happened. The emergency situation will certainly have had an impact (especially in defence), but the Granata offered an insufficient performance: above all they betrayed their former players, see Tameze’s mistake on the opponent’s goal and the disarming performance of Ilic, who also represents the cornerstone of the scandal in the Cairo-Juric affair, with the latter guilty of not having signed the renewal after having demanded the purchase of the former Hellas director. Watching the match up until the 77th minute, one would have said that this public dismissal of the Croatian coach by the Granata president had effectively extinguished any ambitions: but at that moment, a shot from a certain Savva, who emerged from the spring, and the first goal of the revived Pellegri, who strangely escaped the infirmary, who, if they wanted, could reverse the perspective. Arrigo Sacchi said that one of the evils of Italian football is that very often the articles were already written before the finale, but then they were often completely changed for an episode: well, that didn’t happen here, let’s be clear.
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In terms of the standings, both teams remain clinging to their hopes: Turin unexpectedly seizes the chance offered by Napoli’s home defeat, moving to just one point behind the Neapolitans and equal on points with Fiorentina (who however have two games less and a Conference final to play), aware that in the event of 9 passes Europeans it would be enough to overcome one of the two. Verona benefits from the simultaneous defeat of Sassuolo and remains +4 from Udinese (who however have one game less): what could favor Hellas is that, in the middle, there are Frosinone and Empoli, who could being sucked into the quicksand before her. Furthermore, the Scaligeri still have an inviting match-ball in the next round against the already relegated Salernitana, before facing the Italian champions Inter: in short, the feeling is that their destiny is still in their own hands, especially playing like this . Of course, up until today’s 77th minute the party was ready, and that image is perhaps the one to be defeated most quickly.
Regardless of this defeat, if Verona is saved, a monument to Baroni must be built: the Verona coach managed to keep the bar straight after an unprecedented dismantling, launching some carneadi (but who knew Noslin, Serdar, Centonze and Ruben Vinagre?), giving confidence, generating enthusiasm, guaranteeing concreteness but also flashes of good play, also in this match where for large stretches he put Torino behind. Many thought his Hellas were done for, and they weren’t entirely wrong: instead, Baroni could succeed, despite today, in a great little feat after his salvation with Lecce. And it would be a salvation with much more value, because it was achieved in an environment of abandonment and against all odds: today he came very close to celebrating, also nailing Swidersky’s substitution, which opened the scoring as soon as he came on. Perhaps the only fault of the yellow-blue coach is that he arrived late, because at the age of 60 one is rarely considered for an upgrade in Serie A, overtaken by young and more fashionable youngsters: a lot will depend on the end of this season, but if I were in a mid-ranking team, Turin included, rather than throwing myself into will-o’-the-wisps, I wouldn’t hesitate too much to throw myself into a serious and reliable profile like his.
After May 4th, Torino should have played for dignity: after the chilling episode of Superga in which memory, identity and fans were tarnished in a single video, the team had seen fit to protect itself with a generic and hypocritical statement, laminated like everything that now concerns the club chaired by Urbano Cairo, conniving and directly responsible for this destruction of Granata history. Regardless of the superficial communications, we expect to see that “scale of values” grenade on the field: paradoxically, the only trace of ferocity was seen when Juric launched young players from the spring team who had never been fielded before onto the field, and what seemed like a a sign of surrender instead became the sliding door of the match. And this, without any overestimation of what happened in those final 15′, is an indication that what is needed most of all is what the Granata fan wants most of all: someone who has valid reasons to honor the shirt he is wearing, without be satisfied with the plasticized world that Cairo society continues to offer.
The article Verona-Turin (1-2) – Scattered considerations comes from Sportellate.