When looking at either the number of trophies won or the number of points won in Serie A, Torino are Italy's fourth most successful club of all time. At the present time, however, the club is but a shadow of it's former self and lives very much in the shadow of local rivals Juventus who are by the same criteria, Italy's most successful team of all time. The turning point in the club's history can be traced to the Superga air disaster of 1949 where ten Italian international players were killed. The Torino side of the immediate post war period is considered by many to be the best Italian club side in history, and almost exclusively, they formed the national team. Torino have never recovered from the disaster, and now move between Serie A and Serie B with regularity.
Founded in 1906, FBC Torino were the product of a merger between FBC Torinese Torino and dissatisfied members of Juventus. Torinese were themselves the product of a merger as the club, founded in 1894, absorbed FBC Internazionale Torino, Italy's first football club, into their structure in 1899. Internazionale Torino had finished as runners up in the first two Italian League Championships, but were beaten on both occasions in the play off final, the scores being two-one in 1898 and two-nil in 1899, Genoa being the benefactor both times. The following year, the new club again finished runners up to Genoa, this time losing one-nil in the play off held in Turin. Torinese qualified for the semi final in 1902 and then struggled to field a side in 1905, eventual Champions Juventus winning a three-nil walkover victory in the Piemontese qualifying fixture. The following season, Juve were the only entrants from the region. In 1907, a newly formed Torino beat Juve in both of the Piemontese group matches and were themselves the beneficiary of a walkover victory in the final group as they went on to finish runners up in their first season.
The 1907 season proved to be only a brief flirtation with triumph, as the new club failed to qualify for the national final group until the 1926/27 season. That year, Torino scored fifty-two goals in eighteen matches to win the regional group and were outgunned only by Juventus in the final group, who had put eight past Milan in the San Siro. Torino won the play off league by a two-point margin for their first Italian League Championship. The following year, Torino were even more devastating when on the attack, as they scored seventy-seven goals in twenty games to win their regional league, albeit by a single point. In the process they put eleven goals past both Brescia and Napoli and fourteen past Reggiana in the home fixture and eight against them in the away match. Torino won the final group again by a two-point margin. They looked set to continue in the same manner when the following years qualifying leagues were being played. Torino's attack was as potent as ever and found the net one hundred and fifteen times over the course of the thirty match league. This included a nine-one win over Prato, a ten-one victory against Livorno and a twelve-nil defeat of Triestina. This year the new champions would be decided via a three match play off against the winners of the other qualifying league. Bologna had won their group even more emphatically, scoring less goals, but winning more games than Torino and beat them in two of the three play off matches to win the last Italian League Championship before the introduction of the new two tier national league in 1929.
Torino finished in a respectable fourth place in the inaugural season of Serie A, but then went into something of a decline, avoiding the relegation zone by just two points in the 1933/34 season, and by one point in 1934/35, the year in which local rivals Juventus won their fourth consecutive scudetto. However, a mini revival in the mid thirties saw Torino finish in third place in 1936 and 1937 and in a repeat of the 1928 season, finish runners up to Bologna in the 1938/39 season. Torino also won the Coppa Italia in 1936, in the first Italian cup tournament to be played since 1922, beating Alessandria five-one in the final. It would be 1942 before the renamed AC Torino would figure in the title race again, as they finished three points behind champions Roma, in second place. Although they were the division's top scorers, they had the worst defensive record of any team in the top five and seven away defeats proved costly. The following season, Torino managed to shore up their defence and conceded fewer goals than any other Serie A side. That year they lost just three times away from the Stadio Filadelfia and won the championship from Livorno by a single point. Torino completed the domestic double by beating Venezia four-nil in the Italian Cup final. By now, agriculture millionaire Ferrucio Novo was Club President and former national coach Vittorio Pozzo was in charge the team. They were in the process of creating Il Grande Torino, the team that would continue to dominate the domestic scene at the resumption of league football after World War Two.
From the 1945/46 season to the end of the 1948/49 season, Torino won four consecutive Serie A titles, did not lose a single league game at home and averaged almost three goals a game. The side were also very strong defensively, finishing with the best defensive record in Serie A in all but two of these seasons with the final group of the 1945/46 scudetto being one of the exceptions. Forty-three goals in fourteen games however, easily made them the top scorers of the play off mini league and allowed Torino to continue where they had left off before the outbreak of World War II, winning their fourth league championship. Numbers five, six and seven would follow in successive years, as the tactical acumen that took Italy to World Cup victories in 1934 and 1938 and the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games helped Pozzo's Torino to completely dominate the Serie A scene. The club had also benefited from the Agnelli family, the owners of the Fiat car company and Juventus, who had given the Torino players nominal jobs at the Fiat factory to keep them out of the Italian army. The Italian national side was almost exclusively composed of Torino players, and when the aeroplane bringing the national team home from Lisbon crashed into the Basilica on top of the seven hundred metre high Superga hill on the outskirts of Turin, Torino's best ever period died along with the ten Italian internationals who were killed in the disaster. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, Torino's early league form was enough to secure a top ten finish in Serie A, but they rapidly went into a decline and since 1949, they have won just one scudetto.
The club managed to place in mid table throughout much of the early to mid 1950s, and despite brushes with relegation in 1951 and 1952 looked to be re-establishing themselves when, in 1958, they changed their name to Talmone Torino. The change of name, however, was to coincide with the club's worst season to date, as they won just six games all season, none away from the Stadio Filadelfia and finished bottom of the table to be relegated for the first time in the club's history. Torino reverted back to AC Torino in 1959, and duly won promotion from Serie B as champions, before leaving the Stadio Filadelfia to share the Stadio Comunale with local rivals Juventus, now very much Turin's premier team. The club looked like they might be able to consolidate in the top flight, and their first season back saw the unlikely pairing of Joe Baker and Dennis Law in attack and seventh place in Serie A.
Under former Milan coach, Nereo Rocco, and with the arrival of prodigious goal scorer Gigi Meroni, Torino looked as though they may be able to lay the ghosts of Superga to rest. Losing appearances in the Italian Cup final in 1963 and 1964 saw Torino at least competing for honours and the following season would see their best performance since Superga. The 1964 Coppa Italia winners, Roma decided not to enter the European Cup Winner's Cup, and only a defeat after a replay in the semi-final against Munich 1860 prevented them from reaching the final. The same year, third place in Serie A was their best finish in over fifteen years. Two years later, in 1967, disaster struck again as Meroni was killed by a car just days before the Turin derby match. Despite the tragedy of Meroni's death, Torino were establishing themselves as a Serie A side, and were now regular top ten finishers.
The club won the Italian Cup in 1968, when the competition was decided on a league basis, and again in 1971, beating Milan on penalties in the final. On each occasion, their Cup Winner's Cup campaign would falter at the quarter final stage. However, then as now, it was the scudetto that really mattered to the fans, and new coach Gigi Radice would oblige them in the 1975/76 season, aided and abetted by the strike partnership of Francesco Graziani and Paolo Pulici. Torino won fourteen of their fifteen home games, lost just three times away from the Stadio Comunale and crucially, completed the double over Juventus in the Turin derby to clinch the title. Juve finished in the runners up spot by just two points, and their loss to Torino was their only home defeat of the season. In their first European Cup campaign the next year, Torino edged past Malm?FF in the first round, but lost to eventual finalists Borussia M鰊chengladbach in the second round. There would be no more trophies for some time and a series of near misses in both the league and Italian Cup would bring disappointment to the fans. Torino finished runners up in Serie A to Juventus in 1976/77 and third place in 1977/78 as Juventus went on to win the championship again. Three consecutive losing appearances in the Coppa Italia final between 1980 and 1982 compounded the misery. Second place in Serie A in 1985 and another Italian Cup final in 1988 disguised the fact that this was a club in decline, and in the 1988/89 season saw Torino relegated. The side that won promotion as champions from Serie B the following year was Torino's best since their scudetto winning side of 1976.
Former youth team winger Gianluigi Lentini was the outstanding talent in a team that featured Enzo Scifo and Walter Casagrande and Torino finished fifth in their first season back in the top flight. The following year, Lentini was sublime as Torino finished in third place and reached their first ever final in European competition, their UEFA Cup victims including KR Reykjavik and Boavista FC. The final was played against Ajax and Casagrande scored twice in the first leg, played in Turin for a two-two draw. The second leg finished goalless, and Ajax were the victors on away goals. The sale of Lentini to Milan the following year for a then world record twelve million eight hundred thousand pounds prompted near riots and the fans to boycott Torino's home fixtures, which since the 1990 World Cup have been played at the Stadio Delle Alpi.
Despite a Coppa Italia success in 1993 and the proceeds from the sale of Lentini, life in the shadow of Juventus was never going to be easy and the club was heavily in debt. In 1996, a Torino team much weakened by player transfers was relegated and showed little sign of bouncing back the following year. The arrival and departure of Graeme Souness as coach in 1997 and the return of Lentini after suffering mixed fortunes since leaving the club, including a car crash which almost cost him his life, led to a sense of renewed optimism amongst the Torino faithful, but only time will tell if this optimism will bear fruit. |
发表于 2003-2-13 19:02:03
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