The maroon side of Turin was buzzing with excitement at a potential first Serie A win for 53 years in January 2029. The arrival of Guillaume Restes had inspired Torino FC to the top of Serie A midway through Lorenzo Bonino’s third campaign at the club. The goalkeeper’s league-leading 11 clean sheets had helped I Granata enjoy a six-point lead over Atalanta, but with Inter lurking another point back with a game in hand.
Bonino didn’t see a massive need to strength in January and, indeed, didn’t have the finances to compete, given they only had £5m remaining in the transfer budget. However, he did loan in Leverkusen midfielder Francis Onyeka to provide a bit more depth. He also promoted 6ft 8in academy product goalkeeper Rastko Kurtes to replace backup Rui Araki, who got upset about a lack of football and went on loan to Wolves, as well as fellow 6ft 8in right back Roberto Pucciarelli and the more regularly sized left back Angelo Corsini to cover a lack of numbers in defence.
Can Torino Maintain Their Title Push?
2029 began in style as exciting loanee striker Mohamed Meité netted a superb hat trick to inspire a 3-0 win at home to Genoa. A dull 0-0 followed at Frosinone, which was a decent result as Alessio Cacciamani foolishly got himself sent off. Without the winger, loanee striker Meité edged a 3-2 win at home to Bologna, beore welcoming Milan to the Olimpico. Torino landed the first blow, countering from a Milan corner with Leonel Flores freeing Samuele Inácio, who skinned his marker and neatly finished into the far corner. Restes made a huge save from Ramos after an hour, which was the key factor in a crucial 1-0 victory that ended a run of four successive defeats to Milan.
That took Torino 9 points clear, which they retained with two stunning Rolando Mandragora volleys downing struggling Roma 2-1 away. Another huge game followed as 6th-place Juventus visited the Olimpico for another Mole Derby, in which Bonino had drawn four and lost one of the previous clashes with their Turin rivals. The hosts started well and right back Nathan Patterson picked out the league’s leading scorer Meité to smartly convert after 12 minutes. And the lead was deservedly doubled just before halftime as Flores’ corner was powered home by Luca Weinhandl. It got even better after the break as left back Niccoló Fortini picked out Meité, who finished superbly on the run into the far corner from 20 yards.
That massive first win over Juve extended Torino’s lead to 11 points with 14 games remaining. Cacciamani and Meité bagged braces as they crushed bottom side Cremonese 5-0, while 2nd-place Atalanta drew at Roma, before Giovanni Simeone came off the bench to score the only goal at home to Lecce. Pucciarelli made his senior debut in a wasteful 0-0 at Padova and got his first assist by crossing for Inácio to score the opener after 13 minutes at home to 19th-place Parma. Mandragora hit a trademark stunning freekick 6 minutes later, Inácio won and converted a penalty on 23 minutes and Mandragora whipped in a mirror freekick from the right just before halftime. And they cruised to a dominant 4-0 victory.
10 Games From Glory
Heading into the final 10 games of the 2028/29 campaign, Torino had established an 11-point lead over Atalanta, were 15 points ahead of Como, 15 ahead of Bologna and 17 clear of Milan and Inter.
The title race began with a tricky run of fixtures as Valentin Zabransky’s own goal saw an injury-hit side lose 1-0 at Como, before giving former player Gvidas, who left because he wanted to join a bigger club, a taste of what he was missing as Simeone, Flores and Meité earned a 3-1 victory over Udinese inspired by 9 Restes saves. A clinical 2-0 win at Monza, thanks to an excelent Meité finsh and a deflected Cacciamani strike, was coupled with Atalanta losing 2-1 at Como and Inter suffering a shock 3-0 defeat at home to Lazio.
That established a 13-point lead heading into the final seven games, meaning Torino needed just 8 points to claim their first Scudetto for 53 years.
Game 32 – Inter (6th, home): Torino put in their worst performance for a while at home to Inter. The visitors dominated early on and scored as a corner was recycled and Luiz Henrique’s shot deflected in. But, despite offering nothing in an attacking force with Meité out suspended, they only lost 1-0 thanks to Restes making 7 saves. Atalanta slipped up again with a 2-1 defeat at Udinese, but Como stayed in the race with a 2-1 win at Fiorentina.
Game 33 – Lazio (9th, away): Bonino focused training on defensive issues for the next match, but was slightly worried as they went behind again at Lazio thanks to Zabransky scoring a second own goal in five games. But this time they recovered well through a typically clinical Meité finish before Zabransky made amends with a header at the right end for a change and a late Simeone tap in inspired a 3-1 win at Lazio. Atalanta dropped points for the fourth successive game in a 1-1 at Monza, which left Como as the nearest challengers, but still 13 points back with five games remaining as they drew 3-3 at home to Genoa.
Game 34 – Napoli (9th, away): Cacciamani suffered a fractured cheekbone in training, but was able to continue playing with a protective mask, while a few players were struggling for match fitness. They were also without the suspended Fortini, Weinhandl and Mandragora as they went to Napoli with a first chance to claim the title. Lacing that trio, they made a surprisingly strong start as Cacciamani’s wonderful first-time cross was clipped in by Meité. However, the winger gave the ball away for Madueke (who is massively overrated in FM27) to counter and tee up McTominay for the equaliser, before the referee awarded Napoli a dubious penalty for a “push” that Lang powered in. Como took advantage with a 5-1 win at Bologna to move 10 points behind, becoming the only team that could stop Torino.
Game 35 – Sassuolo (12th, home): Como played first and kept the pressure on with a 2-1 win at home to Frosinone. Bonino told his boys to go out and win the title for the home supporters and they should have been in front after 4 minutes as Mandragora shot wide from close range. Meité had a goal ruled out for offside after 20 minutes, but Mandragora made no mistake after half an hour, cutting inside after a corner and powering into the far corner. After the break, Meité hit the post and had another goal disallowed for offside. But he finally got onto the scoresheet as he latched onto Patterson’s cross to tap in from 3 yards out after 77 minutes. That secured a comfortable 2-0 victory that typified Torino’s season, giving up possession, defending resolutely, creating more chances and being extremely clinical.
Torino won the Serie A title and were Champions of Italy for the first time in 53 years!
Torino celebrated the title with another typically resolute 2-0 win at Atalanta, before Mandragora rescued a point against Fiorentina and wrapping up the season with a pretty dire 0-0 at Genoa. They won Serie A by 11 points from Milan, who enjoyed a late surge up the table, ahead of Como, Juventus, Bologna, Atalanta, who had a terrible conclusion to the campaign, and Inter, who sacked Tuchel before the final two games. Torino finished on 82 points after 25 wins, 7 draws and 6 defeats, scoring 66 goals (28 fewer than last season’s champions Inter) and conceding just 22 – six of which were in one match!
Torino players didn’t dominate the Serie A stats, but Meité claimed the top scorer award with 23 goals in 33 games and Flores had the 4th-most assists with 10. Mandragora racked up the greatest distance covered (294.09 miles), with Cacciamani and Weinhandl in 6th and 7th, and had the second-best rating of 7.21 (only behind Orsolini’s 7.41). Zabransky made the most key tackles (8) and Weinhandl made the most blocks (51). But arguably the critical contributor to their title win was Restes, who racked up 23 clean sheets, which was 10 more than any other keeper in the league, and had the best save ratio (89%) and expected save ratio (87%). As a result, Restes won the best goalkeeper of the season, while Weinhandl won best midfielder and Meité won best striker, while Bonino was named the Most Valuable Coach and the Panchina d’Oro.
Celebrating Unexpected but Deserved Title Glory
Bonino hadn’t expected a title tilt in his third season, given how Torino had performed the previous season. However, the additions of Restes and Meité, in addition to a slight change in position and role for Mandragora, had transformed his side into one that was difficult, often even impossible, to score against and extremely clinical. And that’s a pretty deadly combination.
Meité led the way with an impressive 23 goals in 33 games, followed by backup Simeone, Mandragora and Inácio (8), Cacciamani (7) and Zabransky (4). Flores racked up 10 assists, followed by Patterson (8), Cacciamani (7) and Mandragora, Inácio and Meité (5). But captain Mandragora was undoubtedly the heartbeat of the team, leading the way with a 7.21 average rating.
Bonino had loved his time in charge of Torino but, as is customary when success comes to a club, half of his team was wanted by bigger clubs and players were starting to demand new contracts. So he decided that he couldn’t be bothered to deal with the inevitable outcries from all quarters and go out on a high.
High Hopes For FM27
And there you have it. Our FM27 Beta save ends with highly unexpected success for Lorenzo Bonino’s Torino in his third season. Interestingly, that comes at exactly the same point as we won the Serie A title with Parma on FM26! So I think that, while a lot of people are talking about how harder this game is in terms of focusing on tactical effectiveness, realistically not that much has changed. If you can build a solid and, probably even more importantly, settled team, you can build a side that’s capable of competing. We spent £91m in three seasons with Torino, with the most expensive outlay being £20m on Weinhandl, and had a net spend of £12m. Seven of the first team started the save with us and three more were youth prospects, so we didn’t hugely overhaul the squad and kept some key, influential players around, which I think boosted player buy-in. But still, none of our tactical understanding pie charts are above seven of the ten pieces of pie. And, furthermore, training contribution and match exposure both remain extremely low across the board. So I really don’t think it’s something that FM players need to get too hung up on.
I will say that I think FM27 is a big upgrade on what we, let’s be honest, had to endure in FM26. The user interface is clearly a massive improvement, it’s far more intuitive, more user-friendly and much more immersive, in terms of “getting lost” in the fictional FM world again. I also think the match engine is much better than FM26, which was probably my biggest bugbear with the game as it was super glitchy on my PC. And, touch wood, I’ve not had a single crash on FM27, when I was still having big crash dumps even at the end of FM26.
So I think we can expect good times when it comes to the FM27 lifecycle. I know a few bugs do exist in the game, which will hopefully be ironed out in the next couple of updates, but I’m really looking forward to more fun adventures. Our next couple of series should hopefully be our next iteration of the Wonderkid Factory series and a second version of the Turf Wars series. So stay tuned for more FM content very shortly!
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