The portrait of Sandro Mazzola: from the first kicks in the parish to the triumphs with Herrera’s Inter and the national team. The story of the man who inherited the legacy of his father who died in the Superga plane crash
There is an image that more than any other tells what it meant to be Sandro Mazzola: on May 4, 1949, a six-year-old boy finds himself surrounded by crying adults who caress his head without finding words. On the hill of Superga the destiny of Grande Torino had just ended and with it the life of the father Valentino Mazzolathe absolute legend of post-war Italian football. For anyone else, that surname would have been a sentence or a burden impossible to bear. For Alessandro, for everyone Sandrino, it became the starting point of an unrepeatable human and sporting adventure, which ended with his death at the age of 83.
Orphaned, Mazzola grew up in the San Lorenzo oratory in Milan and the protective affection of historic figures at Inter. It was Benito Lorenziknown as «Veleno», to knock on the door of his house in Cassano d’Adda bringing him boots and a ball, while Giuseppe Meazza he took care of the first technical fundamentals. Sandrino and his brother Ferruccio soon became the mascots of Appiano Gentile and San Siro, breathing in the smell of the locker room well before stepping onto the grass as professionals.
The baptism of fire on the day of Moratti’s protest
Fate reserved him a debut as a novel on 10 June 1961. In protest against the Federation, the president Angelo Moratti and the technician Helenio Herrera they decided to send the Primavera team to play the repeat match against Sivori and Boniperti’s Juventus. It ended 9-1 for the Bianconeri, but the only Inter goal was scored by that skinny eighteen-year-old boy, fresh from a school exam that same morning. From that day, the Inter shirt remained his second skin for seventeen consecutive seasons.
Tactically placed halfway between the classic midfielder and the modern second striker, Mazzola possessed a burning sprint, an elegant progression with his head held high and a relentless sense of goal. Helenio Herrera made it his lethal weapon Great Interthe team that changed the rules of European football with the unforgettable rhyme: Sarti, Burgnich, Facchetti, Bedin, Guarneri, Picchi, Jair, Mazzola, Milani, Suárez, Corso.
The night of Vienna and the embrace of Ferenc Puskás
International consecration came on 27 May 1964 at the Prater in Vienna, in the European Cup final against the legendary champions Real Madrid. Before the kick-off, Mazzola remained still in the tunnel, almost intimidated in the presence of sacred monsters such as Di Stéfano and Puskás; it was Luis Suárez who gave him a push to get him onto the pitch. On the pitch, Sandro dominated the scene with two masterful goals in the final 3-1: the first with a swing from outside the area to the edge of the post, the second taking advantage of a defensive error to beat the goalkeeper with a touch from the outside. At the end of the race, Ferenc Puskas he approached him, gave him his white jacket and said a phrase destined for history: “You are worthy of your father Valentino”.
He will win for the Nerazzurri four championships, two European Cups And two Intercontinental Cupscollecting a total of 565 official appearances and 158 goals, as well as becoming top scorer in Serie A in 1965 and coming close to winning the Ballon d’Or in 1971, surpassed only by Johan Cruyff.
Record-breaking flashes, cup nights and top scores
His ballistic repertoire has given instant entries directly into the collective memory. On 24 February 1963, in a derby against Rocco’s Milan, they were just enough for him 13 seconds from the kick-off to exchange on the fly, burn the Rossoneri rearguard and score the fastest goal in the history of the Milanese derby for almost sixty years.
The return semi-final of the European Cup against Liverpool was also memorable, on 12 May 1965 at San Siro: to overturn the 1-3 score in the first leg, Mazzola scored the 3-0 goal with a chest stop on the edge of the area, a feint to return to disorientate the marker and a whip under the top corner. That year coincided with his personal peak: top scorer of the championship with 17 goals, championship and a second European triumph against Benfica.
The Mexico ’70 relay and the Italian epic
With the national team shirt, Mazzola wrote equally indelible chapters: 70 appearances, 22 goals and three participations in the World Championships. In 1968 he was among the protagonists of the conquest of European Championship in the repeat of the final in Rome against Yugoslavia.
Two years later, a Mexico ’70was decisive in the quarterfinals in Toluca against the Mexican hosts, overturning the initial deficit and dragging the Azzurri to a 4-1 final win. In that tournament the famous “relay” was born with Gianni Riveracommissioned by the technical commissioner Ferruccio Valcareggi. That duality, which split Italian sports between the Mazzolians and the Riverians, was in reality the mirror of a golden era of our football: two champions different in style but united by a profound mutual respect, capable of pushing the Azzurri to the legendary semi-final of the century against West Germany and the final against Pelé’s Brazil.
From the discovery of the Phenomenon to the voice of the television story
Having concluded his career on the green rectangle in 1977, his connection with football has never been interrupted. As manager of Inter, under the presidency of Massimo Morattiwas the main architect of the operation that brought the Brazilian phenomenon to Milan Ronaldo in 1997. Later he also had managerial experience in Turin, closing an ideal circle with his father’s team.
In the following years he was a familiar presence in Italian homes as a television commentator, bringing to analyzes the same calm authority and subtle irony that distinguished him.
With the passing of Sandro Mazzola, one of the last witnesses of romantic football passes away, the man with the “moustache” who demonstrated to the world how the legacy of a myth does not necessarily have to crush those who receive it, but can transform into the engine of an entirely own legend.
