The start has been nice and good, for us Italians. Of course, we didn't win, we didn't take home the first pink jersey, but with Ciccone, Busatto, Ulissi, and Piganzoli we definitely made ourselves seen.

We are 48 and we can really shake things up, try to create a "big mess", as Giulio Ciccone loves to say and do, someone who lets himself be guided by instinct, because he has instinct to spare. Ours is a large and varied tricolor fleet, which is strong with many new forces ready - hopefully - to take flight, or at least to stand out, to be noticed.

It won't be easy, it won't be simple, especially for our two tricolor forces, VF Group Bardiani CSF Faizané and Polti VisitMalta, the teams led by Bruno and Roberto Reverberi and by Ivan Basso, two clay pots among iron pots. Two formations that are talent incubators and must make a virtue of necessity, somewhat like Maurizio Sarri - a great cycling enthusiast - used to say when with his Napoli he fought against Juventus with a third of the budget. Or the same Juventus that in Europe boasted the 11th budget in the Champions League.

You win if you have talents and talents can be obtained with resources. If the resources are half of the last two invited to the Giro, like Tudor and Q36.5 that have budgets of 25 and 18 million euros, against half (nine million), for both of them, well, then the situation becomes a bit more complicated. Just think about one thing: nine million euros for VF Group and Polti, and 6 million euros offered by Q36.5 to Tim Pidcock alone: I believe no further explanation is needed. It's like fighting every day against a group full of Pogacars: if you place well, it's already an achievement.