Torino coach Paolo Vanoli used history to help motivate his squad for tonight’s Derby della Mole against bitter rivals Juventus, but admits injuries forced them to do ‘something very different.’
It kicks off at the Allianz Juventus Stadium at 19.45 GMT.
The Granata have not won the Turin Derby since a 2-1 home result in April 2015, managing just five draws and 15 defeats between Serie A and the Coppa Italia.
Their last away victory over Juventus was 2-1 in April 1995.
Saul Coco Torino-Lazio goal (Photo by Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images)
“It’s a fantastic atmosphere, a special game, we know what derbies are like and must contain our emotion to give our best on the pitch,” Vanoli told DAZN.
In trying to motivate the players, the coach showed them video of the epic 3-2 Torino victory in March 1983, when they were trailing 2-0 and turned it around with three goals in four minutes.
“The 1983 derby was important for me, because I wanted to show the players how you react to mistakes. They always need that courage. I just wanted to stay in silence and make sure the players heard the people around Toro, who know what the Granata jersey really means. Motivation for this match comes by itself.”
Torino were at one stage top of the table after a very strong start to the Serie A season, but have inevitably plummeted after losing Duvan Zapata for six months to a torn anterior cruciate ligament injury.
To make matters worse, Che Adams is also out tonight with a thigh strain, so Nikola Vlasic has to be bumped up in support of Tonny Sanabria.
“Naturally, we started the season with a group of strikers that we based a lot of our movements on, but the Zapata injury and now Adams too has changed everything,” confessed Vanoli.
“Vlasic and Sanabria have very different characteristics to those two and we need to provide service for them with very different mechanisms to the ones we worked on all summer.”
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