Football in Italy has become a real collective rite, a passion that is handed down from generation to generation that unites and divides. To identify the precise moment when this sport has reached our country, we must go back to the late nineteenth century, when English sailors and merchants made the first games in European ports land. From then on, within a few decades, a phenomenon was born that has shaped and continues to shape not only the sports world, but also our society and national identity. The Serie A, the great teams, the epic nights of the 80s-90s, Calciopoli’s wounds: telling the evolution of Italian football means, in some ways, retracing the history of the country itself.
Who brought football to Italy and where he was born: the first team
The landing of football in Europe and beyond, it is above all thanks to the English sailors and merchants who, in the ports of the cities in which they came, took their free time with the ball, between shots and goals, stimulating the curiosity of the locals. Not surprisingly, the first football clubs were born in the maritime city, offices of important ports. To make some examples: in France the oldest team was born in Le Havre in 1872 and, in the same year, the Huelva Ricreation Club was established in Spain. In Italy, the first football team would seem to have been established in 1887 in Turin by Edoardo Bosio, employee of a commercial company with frequent relations with England. Then followed the Genoa Cricket and Football Club, born on September 7, 1893 at the British Consulate of Genoa by about thirty members who surprisingly paid only ten lire each.
The first Italian official football tournament was organized in 1896 in Treviso by the Gymnastics Federation, while the first real Italian championship was played at the Velodrome Umberto I in Turin on 8 May 1898, by the Italian Football Federation (FIF). Genoa imposed itself on FC Torinese, Turin and International Gymnastics Turin, conquering what would then go down in history as the first “Scudetto”.
The FIF, which then became FIGC starting from 1909, was made up of about two months before the championship by the representatives of the participating teams, in order to organize and regulate all football activities in Italy.
The birth of Serie A in Italy
The first edition of the Italian single group championship as we know it today, however, kicked off on 6 October 1929 and ended on 13 July 1930 with the victory of the Ambrosiana led by Arpad Weisz. Over the years, the maximum Italian competition has evolved and changes have been made on multiple fronts, for example compared to the number of participating teams or the score system (which, in the event of a victory, went from 2 to 3 points in 1994).
In the golden register of Serie A, the team with the largest number of victories is Juventus (36), followed by Inter (20), Milan (19) and Genoa (9). In addition to the numbers and victories, large formations and important sports periods have alternated over time that have made our football system, one of the most important in the world.
The great teams and great champions
Over time there have been many formations, represented by great champions, who gave prestige to Serie A. The most famous example is probably the so -called “Grande Torino”, Piedmontese Rosa who between 1935 and 1949 put to the test the other teams showing great skill, talent and team spirit, winning 2 Italian Cups and 5 consecutive badges. In addition to the titles conquered, in those years the Grande Torino marked several records: 88 consecutive housewives without defeats (almost 8 years), 125 goals scored, the wider victory in Serie A (10-0 against Alexandria) and a goal difference equal to +92 in the same season (1947-48). The epilogue of this heroic rose, unfortunately, was truly dramatic and went down in history as the tragedy of Superga. On May 4, 1949, the players and the staff of Turin, returning home from a trip for a game against Benfica, remained victims of an air crash against the Basilica of Superga, in which 31 people lost their lives.
Many others are the great teams that, then, alternated over time: the Milan of the Dutch (Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard), the Inter of the Triplete (led by José Mourinho and winner of the Italian Cup, Scudetto and Champions League in the same season) or the Juventus of the 9 consecutive badges.
The periods that have left their mark
Analyzing our championship from a temporal point of view, we can identify some periods that remained in the collective imagination of the fans and that have made the history of this sport.
The twenty years between the 80s and the 90s, for example, was characterized by the advent of teams and champions who made the Serie A of the time one of the most important championships on the world football scene. In those years football could count on legendary champions: Maldini, Baresi, Van Basten, Scirea, Platini, Maradona, Baggio, Viallli, Matthäus (just to name a few).
The teams of the Italian championship distinguished themselves, then, in the same period also internationally for the victory of 4 cups of champions (now Champions League), 7 UEFA Cups (current Europa League), 4 Cup Cup and 7 UEFA Super Cup. As proof of the high quality of the Italian football system of that time, moreover, it must also be remembered the conquest of the third world title in 1982 by the blue national team led by Enzo Bearzot.
However, the story of our football did not have only extremely positive moments like those just remembered in the center. Equally characterizing and rooted, they are some more unpleasant and controversial episodes. First of all, the scandal of “Calciopoli”. With this term, in journalistic language, we refer to a series of sports offenses who have tried to encourage some teams at the expense of others and who have shocked the entire football sector on the eve of the 2006 World Cup. Specifically, a series of telephone interceptions had brought to light a network of possible conditioning in which both some managers of the Serie A teams were involved and the top of the FIGC and the arbitration system. These are very serious episodes concluded with processes and hard sentences by justice.
In fact, at the end of the legal process, there were a series of resignation at the highest levels of the Italian football system to which significant measures were added both for the teams involved (think of the relegation of office for Juventus or points penalties against Milan, Lazio, Fiorentina and Reggina), and for the managers of the interested clubs, which responded to the areas of sports justice and in some cases, in some cases, in some cases, in some cases also of the ordinary one.
