Cairo: "Toro, twenty years of excitement. Today we can do good things; there's potential."

"These twenty years have been lived with great emotion, emotion, passion, and a desire to do well." This is where Torino president Urbano Cairo began, speaking last night on Telelombardia during the program "Qui studio a voi stadio," to recount his twenty years (the anniversary fell yesterday) at the helm of Toro. "Commitment, desire, and investment have never been lacking." It all began on September 2, 2005, and "in the twenty years before me, Toro had seven different presidents; in the ten years before me, Toro had played six seasons in Serie B and four in Serie A, including three relegation attempts. This is the Toro I took over," Cairo recalls. "When I arrived in 2005, one of the rumors you heard was that two teams couldn't coexist in Turin; there had to be just one team. And it certainly wasn't Toro that had failed."

Twenty years have flown by, years of financial and sporting stability, of a rebuilt Filadelfia, of Robaldo (the newly established youth center), of a youth sector that has returned to strength and success, of a Toro that has been in Serie A for 14 years. "We've done so many good things; there can't just be the cliché that everything is negative." President Cairo has three ideas for the future on his agenda: "Our own Stadio Olimpico is an important thing, we'll discuss it with the mayor of Turin as soon as possible: it's something I'd like to do." Second: "Another goal I'm setting for myself over the next two years is to bring the Toro museum back home; today it's in Grugliasco." Third: "We can't make promises anymore; what matters is building the most competitive team possible. If we're here investing and working hard, and this year's budget isn't profitable, it's because we want to do something better than last year. I'm working to build a Toro that will bring satisfaction to the fans."

From these twenty years, he has three memorable moments. "The promotion we achieved on June 11, 2006, nine months and nine days after taking over as president, will always remain with me as a great emotion," he says. "At the start, we didn't even have any footballs: it was a great ride we had with De Biasi as coach, and a team put together overnight." The second: "Another very good year was the third under Ventura, where with eight games to go we had 39 points. We made a pact with the coach and the players to play eight finals: we got 18 points, finished seventh with 57 points, and managed to reach the round of 16 in Europe, beating Bilbao in the round of 32. We are the only Italian team to have beaten them on their home soil." The third: "The championship with Mazzarri, in 2018-19, we finished seventh with a second half of the season in which we were fourth."

My final thoughts are on today's Torino. "We built today's team with coach Baroni and manager Vagnati, trying to make it competitive. I don't want to make any proclamations, especially because we got off to a really bad start with that awful defeat at San Siro against Inter, which I was very disappointed with and really upset about. I think the team is there; some players like Simeone and Ngonge are finding their best form. It's a team that can do some good things: the coach is very motivated, he's on track, and he's ready to do things well. I'm confident; I think the team has great potential." The transfer window has brought eight new players: "Eight new players, some of them really strong. Asllani, for example, could be important in allowing Casadei, Gineitis, Anjorin, Ilic, and Vlasic to score goals. He could bring us something good."