The Serie A giants who are the biggest underperformers in Europe

Every season, in all leagues across the world, there are always teams who undermine viewers’ expectations in terms of their underperformances relating to results and league table positions. Torino are quite possibly one the best examples of this alongside Sheffield United in European football, considering the stature of and history of the Italian giants. Il Toro have massively underperformed to worrying levels in Serie A in this campaign and could find themselves in real trouble the further the season unravels.

In this tactical analysis, we will delve deep into the tactics of Marco Giampaolo’s side as well as their statistics for the season and find out exactly how, and why, Torino are currently in a relegation battle in Serie A, sitting in a nervy 17th place, level on points with Spezia and Genoa below them. At the end of the analysis, which will be written in the form of a scout report, we will have examined whether or not Torino should be where they are in terms of their league position.

It must be noted that this article was written before the outcome of Torino’s home game against Hellas Verona on Wednesday.

Torino’s style of play

First and foremost, one of the most important factors to consider, when analysing a team’s overall performance and whether they should be performing a lot better, is their style of play so as to understand exactly which metrics need to be evaluated.

Torino have predominantly been more of a counterattacking side over the past few years. However, in the summer of 2020, the board were looking for a complete overhaul of their stale style of play, and so appointed the ex-Sampdoria and Milan boss, Marco Giampaolo. Whilst Giampaolo never quite succeeded at the latter, it was the former where he earned massive respect for his possession-based, fluid, attacking system.

In the Italian’s final season at I Blucerchiati, he guided the team to a ninth-place finish. In comparison to last season, Claudio Ranieri only managed to help Sampdoria finish fifteenth, eleven points worse off than the previous campaign.

As we can see from the above metrics taken from Wyscout, Sampdoria finished the 2018/19 season ranked seventh in average possession per game under Giampaolo.