Originally posted on May 4, 2013 on Soccer Newsday
“The Torino team is no more… it has disappeared, it is burnt, it has exploded… the team died in action, like a group of shock troops, in the war, who left their trenches and never came back” – Vittorio Pozzo
The Chicago Bulls of the 1990s won 6 NBA Championships in 8 years. The Montreal Canadiens won 5 straight Stanley Cups. The New York Yankees won 10 World Series titles in the 16 years spanning 1947-62, while the Pittsburgh Steelers took home 4 Super Bowl titles in 6 years in the 1970’s.
All of those teams are great dynasties in their own sports.
And then there was Il Grande Torino, winning the Serie A scudetto in 1943, the last season prior to the Second World War.
Torino also won the season title from 1946 to 1948. In 1949, Torino was on its way to its 5th-straight championship.
Exactly how many more championships Torino would have won, we will unfortunately never know.
In 1949, Torino President Ferruccio Novo agreed to have his club play in Benfica for the testimonial of a player he greatly admired in Franciso Ferreira (Xico). The entire team flew to Lisbon on May 1, two days prior to the game, with only 3 players remaining back in Torino; Sauro Toma was injured, Laszlo Kubala stayed back to care for his ill son and Luigi Giuliano couldn’t get a passport in time for the trip.
Torino had 4 games left in the league, with a 4-point lead over Inter, and had their next championship firmly locked up. The game was played on May 3, and the home side would go on to beat the Italian champions, 4-3.
The next day, the Torino squad boarded a Fiat G212, 3-engine airliner in Lisbon and headed for home. Upon approach in Turin, the plane encountered poor weather conditions, with heavy rain pouring down, and dark, low lying clouds. The 31 people on the plane had no idea what would happen upon their descent toward the airport runway.
The relatively new Fiat plane, flown by decorated war hero Pierluigi Meroni, was to land in Turin shortly after 5 p.m. After receiving the last weather report at 5:02, stating the intense fog, heavy rain and poor visibility, the pilot responded back at 5:03 “ricevuto, sta bene, grazie mille.” (Translated: “Received, we’re fine, thank you”)
It was the last message to be sent from the plane.
A few minutes after radioing to say everything was well, the plane smashed full on into the rear wall at the Basilica of Superga, destroying the plane immediately on impact. Bodies, luggage and plane wreckage was
scattered ever
ywhere. There were 31 casualties. No survivors.
The Torino team was no more.
This Saturday, May 4, 2013, marks the 64th anniversary of the Superga tragedy. Torino has never made a strong emphasis or repeated commemoration of the tragedy, the way in which Manchester United have with the Munich disaster. The ceremonies have generally been low key with moments of silence before games, and a yearly mass at the Basilica where the crash occurred.
The team that was
Il Grande Torino was not named as such because it was a good club – it was a great club. It won its first 2 scudetti of the 1940s with 1 point leads over Livorno (1943) and Juventus (1946), with the Italian Championship postponed from the 1943 season until 1945 due to WW2. The next 3 seasons, Torino dominated like few teams have ever before or after it.
During the 5 consecutive scudetti that Torino put together in the 1940s, it won an incredible 132 of 186 games, losing only 22, while scoring 483 goals (2.6 gpg) and conceding only 165 (0.89 gpg).
Moreover, the team’s ability was more than just at the club level. In fact, the Italian Men’s National Team often contained 8 or 9 starting players from Torino, and for one game, 10 players from the Torino squad were starting for the Azzuri, with only the keeper coming from Juventus.
The team would set numerous records during its supremacy of Serie A, many of which still stand, including joint holder of most consecutive Serie A titles (5, tied with Juventus and Inter), the most consecutive seasons undefeated at home (4 seasons), most home wins in one season (19 of 20), most away wins in one season (10 in 15) and most goals scored in one season (125).
Vittorio Pozzo, a former manager of the national team who won 2 World Cups in 1934 and 1938, was one of the first people on the scene. And since he knew most of the players, he was tasked with terrible duty of trying to identify the bodies. Some of the casualties were badly charred; a number of the victims could only be identified by documents they carried, or jewelry they were wearing. At the time of the crash, Pozzo was a journalist for the Turin daily newspaper, La Stampa, and included Pozzo’s quote seen at the top of the page in his story.
In 1946-47, he scored 29 goals to lead the Italian league, and scored 102 goals in the 5 scudetto seasons with Torino. In 1947, he scored a hat trick in 3 minutes, and he remains the leading goal scorer in Torino’s history.
His lineage of greatness would continue to his oldest son Sandro, who was only 6 at the time of his father’s death and would go on to be a star for Inter and the Italian National team in the 1960s and 70s. His record includes winning the 1968 European Championship, 4 scudettos, 2 Italian Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups and playing in 1 World Cup final, losing to Brazil in 1970.
Other players were considered some of the best of their era: Eusebio Castigliano had incredible passing skills; Valerio Bacigalupa was one of the first keepers to come off his line and command the penalty area; Giuseppe Grezar was a star in the midfield, controlling the play; Romeo Menti had lighting speed.
The immense loss also affected the national team. With a fear of air travel embedded in the state of calcio, the 1950 World Cup squad traveled by boat to Brazil to the tournament, a trip that lasted 2 weeks, and ruined any chance of success the team had. Italy lost its first game against Sweden, and was eliminated from the tournament prior to the second game, as the Swedes also beat the only other team in its group, Paraguay, before Italy was to face it.
The Azzuri was also eliminated in the first round of the 1954 World Cup, and failed to qualify for the 1958 World Cup, which remains the only time Italy has failed to qualify for the tournament. It would be 1970 before the Italian side would make it past the first round, being eliminated in the 1962 and 1966 World Cups after the round robin portion of the tournament.
Torino, the team, would never be the same. Torino, the city, would mourn its lost heroes.
With most of the players in their mid 20s, it is hard to imagine how truly great this team would have become, and how much it would have changed the face of Italian calcio, nationally, internationally and locally. At the time of the crash, only Juventus had won more championships than Torino, with 7 compared to 6 for the Granata. Juventus would go on to be the leaders of Italian calcio, with a record number of championships. Torino has only won 1 since.
While watching calcio this weekend, or any weekend, try to imagine a Torino squad that was considered one of the greatest teams that the beautiful game has ever seen.
