Baroni: ‘Torino sad at elimination, but gain conviction’ from performance with Inter

Marco Baroni concedes Torino were ‘sad to be out’ of the Coppa Italia, but the performance against Inter in this quarter-final with new arrivals will ‘allow us to work with more conviction.’

The Granata launched all four of their January signings in the starting XI, and one of them was on target to set up a tense finale.

Ange-Yoan Bonny and Andy Diouf had put Inter 2-0 up before the Sandro Kulenovic header, but Matteo Prati’s potential equaliser for 2-2 was flagged offside.

“I am satisfied with the performance. Unfortunately, we were a little passive and therefore didn’t attack them enough on the wings, where we could’ve put more pressure on Inter,” Baroni told Sport Mediaset.

“We did better in the second half, the team is alive and stayed in the game, continued to believe and was aggressive in attack. We must also recognise that we had three players on the field who only had a couple of training sessions with their new teammates.”

There were full debuts for Prati, Kulenovic, Rafael Obrador and Luca Marianucci this evening, many of them arriving only on deadline day.

“When I pushed Prati from internal midfield to mezz’ala, he did better. Many players were not accustomed to having so many midweek matches, which prompted a few too many injuries, but we should have more back from tomorrow.

“Obviously, we are sad to be out of the competition, but this performance should allow us to work with even more conviction.”

Toro have not made it to the Coppa Italia semi-final since 1993, so it was not entirely surprising that they faltered against serial winners Inter.

It was also played on neutral turf at the U-Power Stadium in Monza, because San Siro is getting ready for Friday’s massive opening ceremony of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic Games.

“The team must give its all and believe in what we are doing. We certainly need to step up a gear, that is the feeling for me and the squad. We can do more, so we’ve got to go out there and fight for it,” added Baroni.