The Italian master team AC Turin died 76 years ago in a plane crash. The fate of “Il Grande Torino” is still moving the sports nation.
The catastrophe has been exactly for 76 years. On May 4, 1949, the AC Turin team, the then best Italian football team, died in a plane crash. How close the “tragedy of Superga” is still the people in Italy has only been shown again a year ago.
Fans of the team and the organizers of the iconic bike tour Giro d’Italia fought a bitter argument about the route of the first stage, which was to lead as a symbolic gesture over the place of the accident-to the annoyance of traditional Turin ultras, who were difficult for the memorial because of the associated road closures and therefore demanded a change in the route.
All inmates of the Superga plane crash were killed
The feeling of getting the sovereign about the memory of the “Tragedia di Superga” out of their hands, the still numerous fans of the mythical team, whose extinguishing the whole country shook the whole country.
In the end, none of the protests helped. The stage took place as planned and was won by Ecuadorian Jhhnatan Narváez. After all, this year the Turin supporters have their way to the memorial for themselves. The Giro finally only starts on May 9 and does not station them in Turin.
Superga tragedy deleted the successful team AC Turin
The AC Turin was the dominant team of Series A for many years until the time of the accident. The decisive factors were the intelligent transfer policy of President Ferruccio Novo (later also Italian National Coach) and the strategic skill of the changing coaches – “Il Grande Torino” as one of the first teams on the “World Cup system”, characterized by quick bridging of the midfield and a supporting role in the outside in the Penalty area urgent wing strikers.
The Italian national team temporarily consisted of ten AC Turin players in the 1940s, which had remained undefeated in 93 home games for over six years. Long before the end of the season in 1949, the team led by captain Valentino Mazzola was on the best way to the fifth championship in a row (interrupted by World War II).
The clear relationships enabled the establishment of a friendly game at Benfica Lisbon in Portugal – after the return journey proved to be fateful.
18 Turin players died during the plane crash
During the approach in the rain and fog, the pilot steered the aircraft too deep above the Turin city hill, so that the machine initially grazed part of the Superga pilgrimage church and then smashed on the city mountain of the same name.
All 31 inmates of the type Fiat G.212 died: the English trainer Leslie Lievesley, the Hungarian manager Erno Erbstein, three other staff members, three journalists, one interpreter, the four -member aircraft crew and 18 Turin players.
In addition to captain Mazzola, the Italian international Valerio Bacigalupo (gate), Aldo Ballarin, Virgilio Maroso (defense), Eusebio Castegliano, Giuseppe Grezar, Ezio Loik, Mario Rigamonti (midfield), Gugielmo Gabetta and Romeo Menti (Sturm), the French national striker Emile Bongiomi, Hungary born Czechoslowake Julius Schubert as well as replacement goalkeeper Dino Ballarin and the other field players Emile Bongiorni, Rubens Fadini, Roger Grava, Danilo Martelli, Piero Operto and Franco Ossola. The defender Sauro Tomá injured on the knee was the only regular player who was not on board and survived – he died in 2018.