On May 4, 1949, El Toro, which at that time was the best team in the world, suffered a plane crash in which there were no survivors, including the death of 18 soccer players.
If we talk about the city of Turin, in Italy, the first team that comes to mind is Juventus, the most successful in Serie A with 36 titles by a wide margin over Inter, second with 20, the last in the current season. . However, in the 1940s, the city’s big club, and one of the best in the world, was Torino, which between 1943 and 1949 won five consecutive leagues (the 1943/44 and 1944/45 seasons were not played due to the Second World War), but it all ended in the Superga Tragedy, a plane crash in which there were no survivors and ended the golden era of the institution.
Called ‘The Invincibles’, they were the base of the Italian National Team, and in a match against Portugal, Francisco Ferreira, captain of Benfica, asked Valentino Mazzola, leader of Torino, to organize a friendly between both clubs as his farewell match. which was played on May 3, 1949. The next day, they began the return trip from Lisbon, but the plane crashed into the Basilica of Superga, causing the death of the 31 people on board, the 18 players, leaders, journalists, companions and crew members.
The very harsh images of the Superga Tragedy. (Getty Images)
The accident that caused the Torino Superga Tragedy
The three-engine Fiat G.212 plane took off from Lisbon at 9:40 in the morning, landed in Barcelona, where they took the opportunity to have lunch, and at 2:50 p.m. it continued its course towards the Turin-Aeritalia airport despite the bad weather: intense fog, strong winds and rain. In Pino Torinese, the two strongest hypotheses indicate that either the strong winds moved the plane a few meters, or the altimeter worked incorrectly and was blocked at two thousand meters and led to the pilot ending up impacting the Basilica of Superga, located at 650 meters high. The crash, which occurred at 5:05 p.m. local time, ended the lives of 31 people, the 18 players, coaching staff, leaders, journalists, companions and the crew on board.
The very harsh images of the Superga Tragedy. (Getty Images)
What the Torino Superga Tragedy left: a league and the friendly with River
Logically, the Superga Tragedy, which caused the death of the entire Torino team, one of the best teams in the world, generated a strong commotion not only in Italy but throughout the planet. In the Italian league, the teams played with a youth team during the last four games of the season and, as they were already leaders, they ended up winning their fifth consecutive title. They were also a team that went almost eight years without losing at home and in the previous season they had scored 125 goals, closing the tournament with a goal difference of +92 and they had had 10 of the 11 starters of the Italian National Team.
On the other hand, River, which at that time was the best team in Argentina, historically known as La Maquina, traveled to play a friendly in tribute to the team with all its figures, Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ángel Labruna and Amadeo Carrizo, among them, against a Serie A team called Torino Simbolo, where money was raised to benefit the families of the deceased.
The victims of the Superga Tragedy
Players
- Valerio Bacigalupo
- Aldo Ballarin
- Dino Ballarin
- Emile Bongiorni
- Eusebio Castigliano
- Rubens Fadini
- Guglielmo Gabetto
- Ruggero Grava
- Giuseppe Grezar
- Ezio Loi
- Virgilio Maroso
- Danilo Martelli
- Valentino Mazzola
- Romeo Menti
- Piero Operto
- Franco Ossola
- Mario Rigamonti
- Julius Schubert
Leaders
- Arnaldo Agnisetta
- Ippolito Civalleri
Coaches
- Egri Erbstein
- Leslie Levesley
Journalists
- Renato Casalbore
- Renato Tosatti
- Luigi Cavallero
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