Torino forward Ché Adams scored as the granata defeated Venezia 3-2 in the Coppa Italia round of 32, extending his bright start to the new campaign at a moment when the club around him is navigating a complicated summer of recruitment and financial constraint.

The goal itself is the easy part of the story. The harder question is what kind of team Adams will be leading the line for when Serie A resumes. Torino finished 2025-26 twelfth in the table with 45 points from 38 matches — a record of twelve wins, nine draws and seventeen defeats, with 44 goals scored and 63 conceded. That defensive fragility is the structural problem no forward can solve alone, and Adams's six goals and two assists across 33 league appearances last season, at an average rating of 6.70, reflect a player doing reasonable work inside a team that too often left him exposed.

The summer has brought a coaching change — Leonardo Colucci now leads the granata — and with it the usual promises of renewal. The club is pursuing Lucas Perri, the Leeds United goalkeeper, in a deal reportedly worth up to €15 million, which signals at least some ambition to address the back line. Sporting director Petrachi has acknowledged publicly that Torino need to sell before they can buy freely, with the balance sheet imposing its own logic on transfer strategy. That tension — between what the squad needs and what the finances allow — is the environment Adams must operate in.

At 30, Adams is past the point where potential is the relevant metric. His AI overall score of 65 out of 100 with a potential ceiling of 52 tells its own story: this is a player whose value is what he delivers now, not what he might become. Six league goals in a team that scored 44 all season is a meaningful contribution, not a transformative one. He is a reliable presence in a squad that has lacked reliability, which is both his strength and his limitation.

The Coppa Italia goal adds momentum, but the real test is whether Colucci can build a system that asks more of Adams in the final third — and whether the summer business gives the squad enough quality around him to make that possible. A striker scoring in pre-competitive cup football is a data point, not a verdict. The verdict comes when the league begins and the margins tighten.

Adams has shown he can find the net. Torino's task is to build a team worthy of the goals he scores.