Il Grande Torino and the Superga disaster

In the years after the Second World War, Torino were the finest team in Italy by a distance. Playing quick, attacking, modern football, they won a string of league titles, including four in a row, and set records that stood for decades. So dominant were they that the national team was built almost entirely around their players, with the majority of Italy's starting eleven drawn from a single club. For a few golden years, Il Grande Torino were not just champions but the defining image of Italian football.

The side was more than a collection of talents; it was a symbol of recovery for a country rebuilding after the war. Led by their captain Valentino Mazzola, they played with a spirit and cohesion that captivated the public, and their success gave a battered nation something to celebrate. They toured and were admired across Europe, ambassadors for a resurgent Italian game. Their dominance felt permanent, a dynasty that seemed certain to define the sport for years to come.

On the fourth of May 1949, returning from a match in Lisbon, the team's plane crashed in fog into the hill of Superga, on the edge of Turin, where a great basilica stands. There were no survivors among the travelling party. The entire team was lost in an instant, along with staff and journalists, a tragedy that stunned Italy and the wider football world. A club and a country were plunged into mourning, and the game itself seemed to stop to grieve.

Torino completed the season, and were awarded the league title, fielding their youth players in the final matches as their opponents did the same in tribute. The loss cast a long shadow, and Italian football took years to recover the strength that had been concentrated in that one extraordinary team. Each year supporters still climb to Superga to remember them. Il Grande Torino endure not only as one of the great sides of their era but as one of football's most poignant and permanent memories.