"Toro 1976. Up there someone loves you": Sky’s new docu-series dedicated to the seventh granata scudetto kicks off

The 1976 Torino epic lives again on Sky Sport thanks to an exciting new original production, fifty years after the seventh and last Scudetto: “Toro 1976. Up there someone loves you,” which recounts the most intense and symbolic moment in Granata history since the legend of Grande Torino, in the industrial context of the 1970s. The three-part docu-series will be aired on Sky and streamed on NOW starting Friday, May 15 at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Sky Sport Legend, also available on demand.

The docu-series (an editorial project by Sky Sport director Federico Ferri, coordination and interviews by Paolo Aghemo, direction by Massimo Bomprezzi and Andrea Parini) tells the story of a team of great talent and quality, with an innovative game thanks to the ideas of coach Gigi Radice, but passed into history as working-class in temperament, training and above all by contrast with the wealthier Juventus of Avvocato Agnelli, with which Orfeo Pianelli was compared. The figure of the president is instrumental in building that group of players who grew up at the Filadelfia, and embellished by great market shots with the skill of general manager Beppe Bonetto and the generosity of Pianelli himself, who often anticipated the competition.

The Toro of 1976 has its philosophical roots in the “granata tremendismo” of 1972 and manages to renew itself thanks to the vision on the bench of a modern coach like Radice, between full-court pressing and offensive soccer. It surprised soccer Italy, dragged by the enthusiasm of a team that also had its strength in the friendly relationship between the players’ families, with the club’s headquarters in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II as a meeting and gathering point. A championship run-up, started on an uphill slope before the series victories and culminated with the derby success. The difficulties in the middle of the season and the restart with the definitive overtaking of the Bianconeri and the apotheosis of the last day with Cesena.

A tale full of behind-the-scenes and unpublished images (including some never seen before of the decisive match on the last day against Cesena at the Comunale) with the emotions of those who were on the field and who were part of this extraordinary ride: the Torino of ’76 remained in the hearts and eyes of those who experienced it and those who still hear about it today with admiration and pride. A team experiencing its first championship victory 27 years after the Superga tragedy. And the players, together with the Granata people and an entire city, will consecrate the memory of that Scudetto by walking on May 17 to the Turin Basilica, to pay eternal homage to the Invincibles.

The title of the docu-series echoes the one that, on the Monday following the victory, Gian Paolo Ormezzano devised for Tuttosport, turning his thoughts precisely to Grande Torino: “Up there someone loves you.” So many testimonies within the narrative journey: the one between the posts of the unforgettable goalkeeper Luciano “Il Giaguaro” Castellini, for 42 years recordman of unbeatability for Toro; or that of the defender Roberto “Faina” Salvadori, of the “Jolly” Giuseppe Pallavicini, of the locker room man Romano Cazzaniga, the second goalkeeper, who was part of the “brianzoli band” led by the “Poet of Goals” Claudio Sala, leader of a midfield completed by Patrizio Sala, the class of Renato Zaccarelli and the tactical intelligence of Eraldo Pecci. Up to the tales of the “Twins of Goal,” Paolo “Puliciclone” Pulici and Francesco “Ciccio” Graziani.

Together with them, the authoritative voices of journalists, intellectuals and Turin personalities who over the years have told and breathed granata history: writer Giuseppe Culicchia, Marcello Bonetto, son of Beppe, general manager of that Torino team, television critic Aldo Grasso, Valter Pianelli, nephew of President Orfeo, and Piero Chiambretti, flanked by those who experienced firsthand the years of the Italian champions, such as Cristiana Ferrini, daughter of historic captain Giorgio, and those who contemplated their exploits as opponents: Mariella Scirea, wife of the late Gaetano, and Fabio Capello, today a popular Sky Sport pundit, at the time a Juventus midfielder.

Within the documentary, the Sky Creative Agency has created a new visual approach that amplifies the emotional impact and transforms the documentary into a more immersive and engaging experience by creating never-before-seen scenes through the use of artificial intelligence: historical photographs that come to life and video reconstructions of moments from the past, always with the consent of those directly involved, from the protagonists’ stories. Thus, for the first time, reconstructions using A.I. enter a Sky Sports documentary.