Italian football is in a pretty sorry state .The national team failed to qualify for the World Cup finals for the third straight time after only missing out once previously and that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, but since that win in 2006, they have won just one WC game at the finals. No club side made it beyond the quarter finals of any of the three European competitions and we had the lowest scoring Serie A season of the Millenium. Games averaged 2.42 goals and they have been pretty much on decline since peaking in 19/20 ( 3.03) and 20/21 (3.06). There have been too many old players (which we have discussed in the past) and head coaches who learned their trade two generations ago and who are stuck in the past, seemingly modern football has passed them all by. I do think that they are trying to address this, but there are also too many foreign players, looking at the squads this morning, four teams have between 26-30 overseas players which is insane! These are not global stars and where once they had them all, they have not had a single one since Cristiano Ronaldo left in 2021 and he was 36yo at the time. No clubs in La Liga or the Bundesliga have anything approaching that number of foreign players, in the EPL there are two with that many, but one is Chelsea who have a massive group and in Ligue 1 just one club and that is Strasbourg (owned by BlueCo/Chelsea and again with the biggest squad). So, basically just Chelsea (INC) and Brighton, who have very different recruitment models to almost every other club.

 

Anyway, games in Italy have become increasingly hard to watch for non domestic football fans, lacking in entertainment and its international television rights make up only 20% of broadcasting revenues, in La Liga it is 44% and in the EPL 48%. The world wants to watch the big names and competitive, exciting matches.

 

This all has to change and that is not going to happen by a return to catenaccio. I hope and feel that Italy has had a final wake up call and expect that games will be more open and surely an upturn in goals as a starting point.

 

 

Torino shipped 63 goals last season despite finishing 12th, only basement club Pisa allowed more. XGD suggests that number was pretty close, but does give them an extra 8-9 goals offensively. They have a new head coach in 39yo Ignazio Abate who played and starting his coaching career (youth and U19) with Milan)and has had the main role job for two seasons, first in Tier 3 (Ternana ...2nd) and last season in Tier 2 (Juve Stabia....7th) and did pretty well both times, but this is a big step up. He demands a high work rate and very intensive play from his teams and there is a chance they will need time to get fully up to speed and the hosts could tire today. 

 

Milan were low scoring last season and that ultimately cost them a Champions League place which was in their grasp all season ( still second with five games to play), finally finishing 5th and costing head coach Massimiliano Allegri his job after just 12 months. He has been replaced by former Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim and most of you know my thoughts on him, but at least Milan were already playing with a back three, which seems to be the only way he can, or is willing to set up and their two big summer signings are also Portuguese which makes things easier I guess. XGD suggests that ACM should have scored 12 more goals and conceded an additional 11 which is kind of what we are hoping for.

 

This is a very high scoring fixture/series and the last six h2h meetings have seen both teams score in each and over 2.5 goals, with 4+ goals in five. The last two seasons have seen Torino opening games average 4.5 goals and Milan's 3.5 and hopefully, all those trends continue today.

 

2.25 units both teams to score and "over" 2.5 goals @ 2.60 asian line.

 

Good luck!