CAGLIARI. When Cagliari won the Scudetto on April 12, 1970, two days before the end of the championship, the rossoblù players celebrated in the changing rooms singing, drinking sparkling wine and smoking. Almost everyone smoked in that team, starting with Manlio Scopigno, the guru of that disheveled group who brought the 1968 revolution to Italian football two years late. They called him the “Philosopher” and he was the first to believe in the possibility that his Cagliari could win the championship, making fun of the northern squads, Milan, Inter, Juve, and Rivera, Mazzola and Anastasi.
Scopigno: we keep Riva. “Let’s keep Riva and we will make it” the Cagliari coach loved to repeat to the managers of the club while the big names of our football competed to bring the rossoblù number 11 to the Continent. The company resisted, probably also thanks to the first “no” to the transfer of the person concerned and so the Sardinian army attacked the white, red and green triangle, trying to break a tradition broken in the postwar period only by Turin, Bologna and Fiorentina .
Riva-Bonimba, what an attack! In 1968-69 the attack led by the duo of wonders Riva-Boninsegna caused havoc: 3-0 at the start against Palermo, 6-1 at Varese, 4-2 at the Olimpico against Roma and again 2-1 on the ground of Juventus. At the halfway point, Cagliari took the platonic title of winter champion. Then in the descending phase of Serie A something jammed and, according to several Rossoblù protagonists, even some not exactly clear referees put a spanner in the works for the team that finished in second place behind Fiorentina.
Three players for Boninsegna. But the speech was only postponed for a year. In the summer of the conquest of the Moon, the diabolical Andrea Arrica completed the staff: he sacrificed Roberto Boninsegna to bring the trio Angelo Domenghini, Bobo Gori and Cesare Poli to Cagliari, who joined the Albertosi-Brugnera duo, who arrived in the previous season in exchange by Francesco Rizzo. Scopigno thus found an even more balanced staff: Gori was Riva’s shoulder, more than the bomber’s competitor, opening inviting spaces for the rossoblù scorer. Domenghini on the right wing was a starter in the national team and therefore a certainty and allowed the coach to free the verve of Claudio Nenè in midfield, a kind of Tardelli ante litteram with the added class of a Brazilian. Finally Poli, used as a wildcard playing as a free, full-back, stopper and halfback as needed. Albertosi in turn conceded just 11 goals, a record that has remained unbeaten in 16-team tournaments.
Scudetto with 16 players. With a small squad (in the end there will be only 16 players used) but very strong, Cagliari started in the league with a beat. After a draw at the opening at Sampdoria, the victories began to rain: 4 in a row, which brought the Sardinian eleven to the top of the standings. First a sharp 2-1 at Vicenza at Amsicora, then a dry 2-0 at Brescia and again a 1-0 at home against Lazio with Brugnera, absent Riva, who took on the role of the match winner.
Florence conquered. Poker was served the following week in Florence. There was Lo Bello to direct the match and there, as indeed a few months later in the Juventus-Cagliari match, the Syracusan whistle took on the role of the protagonist. At that moment we could not even imagine it, but that was the first crucial point of the tournament: Cagliari won 1-0 thanks to a penalty awarded in the first half for a foul on Zignoli and transformed by Riva, taking away an unbeaten run from the gigliati which lasted from the 5th day of the previous championship, and leapt to the solitary command of the classification. A first place that the rossoblù band would never give up.
Challenge to Juve. This was followed by a home match with Inter, two victories in a row over Napoli and Rome, then the match between Amsicora and Juventus. The Old Lady in 8 days, had put together just 6 points while Cagliari sailed in the lead at an altitude of 14. But the game ended 1-1: in the resumption of the initial goal by Domenghini, Antonello Cuccureddu replied almost at the end that day he made his debut in A. Paradoxically, that result awakened the black and white team from torpor to the point of making it the most serious rival of the rossoblùs in the race for the Scudetto.
False step in Palermo. Cagliari instead suffered an involution: they drew with difficulty in Verona and overtook Bologna with a skimpy 1-0, before suffering their first defeat of the season at Palermo. Important moment of the season, first of all because the slip came unexpectedly. A spectacular goal from Troja at the end of the first half brought the Sicilians forward, but the usual Gigi Riva, before the end of the day, managed to equalize. The referee, however, canceled for an offside position of Martiradonna, who ended up on the ground due to an injury near the corner. Scopigno, suddenly undressing the seraphic clothes of the philosopher, shouted at the linesman in what alternative place he could have put the pole of the flag he had waved. It ended up that the technician was given 15 days of disqualification. He would return to the bench only after the Scudetto party on 12 April. Scopigno consoled himself by confiding to the journalists that all in all the game could be seen better from the stands, but in the meantime Cagliari continued the mini negative cycle by tearing two draws in the external confrontation with Bari and then in the home one with Milan which closed 1969.
Riva’s overturned. But with the beginning of the new year, the leaders resumed marching very strong by putting in 5 consecutive wins respectively against Turin, Sampdoria, L. Vicenza (in which Riva scored the super goal in overhead kick), Brescia and Lazio. In the meantime the coach, due to Tomasini’s injury, had invented Pierluigi Cera, captain and fulcrum of the game, free, effective move, so much so that it would have been copied by Valcareggi in Mexico ’70. In midfield, however, Brugnera took over, leaving the technical level of a department in which Ricciotti Greatti already shone very high. However on matchday 19, with 10 points won, Cagliari was calm in the lead with a 4-point margin over Juve. Advantage that was reduced to two points in the next four days after the home draw with Fiorentina, the second defeat of the season at San Siro at the hands of the former Boninsegna, the success over Napoli and the equal at Roma.
Lo Bello and the 2-2 of Turin. This led to March 15, the day of the direct confrontation with Juve. Cagliari wanted at least the same, the Bianconeri the victory to hook their rivals at the top. It finished 2-2 but in an already tasty challenge the pepper put it in Lo Bello. In the first half everything went smoothly: Niccolai’s own goal and Riva’s equal in the final with a sleight of hand: ball on the knee and head and lob to Anzolin. In the second half, the referee first invented a penalty in favor of Juve: Haller shoots and Albertosi saves, but Lo Bello makes it repeat. At that point the Cagliari players almost put their hands on the black jacket, before Anastasi takes charge of the repetition and bags. But with 8 ‘from the end there is another penalty, also the one invented, for a foul on Riva. The Cagliari bomber transforms with a precision shot and the contest ends thus.
Champions of Italy. In the following three days the rossoblùs gained another point on the immediate pursuer and against Bari, on 12 April, they won 2-0 while Juve fell at Lazio’s home, delivering the historic Scudetto to the Scopigno team and to all of Sardinia.
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