Italy World Cup History (Pt. I: 1934 & 1938)

May 3rd, 2010 | by: chris | View Comments

As World Cup histories go, Italy has a good one. Only that Brazilian footballing juggernaut has won more titles, five to four, and Italy have a long and rich history as one of the sport’s best teams. It’s awfully long, in fact. (For the full depth of the Italian national team history, might we suggest majoring in it at school? Also available for a doctoral program, one would assume.)

The long history started out awfully well for the Italians too. They hosted their first tournament in 1934 before heading to France in 1938. Both good memories, to say the least.

1934 World Cup – Italy

It’s good juju when your inaugural World Cup is in your own backyard, and Italy had that fortune in 1934. In fact Uruguay had been given the honor of hosting the first edition, and they walked away with the trophy at the end. This would become something of a theme.

The name is Vittorio Pozzo. (Spoilers ahead.) He was to become the first coach to win two World Cups; today, he remains the only coach. Obviously with a tag line like that nearly 75 years later, the tournament went particularly well. His aura is and was almost that of a military general, a serious man who took football seriously. He was one of the first to initiate what’s now known in Italy as ritiro – camp away from home. He also favored the oriundi, the foreigners of Italian blood, famously saying, “If they can die for Italy, they can play for Italy.” – as good a kibosh as you’ll ever hear.

Most sides favored the 2-3-5 at the time, but Vittorio’s tactical idea had a slight bend – it was the Metodo or WW or 2-3-2-3.

In their first ever World Cup game they ran out 7-1 winners over the United States, with a score sheet that reflects the integral members of the World Cup win: Angelo Schiavio got three and Raimundo Orsi two – both oriundi – while Giovanni Ferrari and Giuseppe Meazza each hit one. The latter, Meazza, may sound familiar as one of Italy’s greatest ever, perhaps even ahead of his time, players, an extraordinarily skilled inside forward; or, he may sound familiar as the former Inter & Milan player for whom the San Siro is named.

With the World Cup very much new, the “first round” of the finals was simply the US game – this meant that win earned them a trip to the quarterfinals with Spain. It wouldn’t go as smoothly, with Ferrari scoring his second of the tournament, but a 1-1 after extras necessitating a replay. All they’d need in the replay was a little Meazza in the 11th to send them to poignantly the San Siro semifinal (it’d opened in 1926). There, they’d meet football’s original geniuses: Hugo Meisl’s Austrian Wunderteam.

They’re spoken of in the same mystical aura as the Mighty Magyars of Hungary for their visionary ball-on-the-floor attacking and dominating grasp on the game. Lady Luck, however, was an Italian on the day of the semifinal: it poured buckets by all accounts, and one needs no grasp of history to understand what a muddied pitch – presumably when groundskeeping wasn’t of the ilk it is now – does to quick passing football. The Italians would win, 1-0, amid rumors there was a foul on the lone goal, and earn a date with Czechoslovakia in Rome.

And though football and politics should probably have their own beds, they rarely do. This was the time of Benito Mussolini, with the Italian players required to do the fascist salute before the game and to be victorious after, and the World Cup was being held in Italy, so questions were raised about how much influence Mussolini had over the referee, Swede Ivan Eklind, who’d also done the semifinal. Like so many World Cup finals in history, it was controversial.

There were claims of a penalty on Antonin Puc which wasn’t called and in general “hard fouls gone unpunished”. Puc, however, would get his goal in the 70th, the first of the game and a jolt to Pozzo’s Italians. Orsi and Schiavio, the duo who’d thumped in five combined in the opener but hadn’t added to their totals in the next three, would come up heroes. In the 82nd Orsi would reply in storybook fashion, the methods of which seem to change by the article, forcing extra time, and in the fifth minute of extras Schiavio would bookend his World Cup with Italy’s first and last goals, and in the process earning Italy their first ever title.

Pozzo had led Italy to the second World Cup title, both having won on their own soil, but it wasn’t until four years later that he’d truly cement his legend.

1938 World Cup – France

It wasn’t home, but the Azzurri didn’t really have to travel far to defend their title – just over the border to France it was. The tournament had been whittled down to 15 teams after Austria, no longer the Wunderteam with Meisl’s death, had declined the invite with other things to worry about, such as being annexed by Nazi Germany – though some would join the German team. (For this, their opponents Sweden would get a first round bye.) Politics and football – never far apart.

This was also their chance to dispel any notion that they weren’t deserving of their 1934 victory and at least separate their football from Mussolini’s politics. That they would. However, they’d have to do it with new faces – though Pozzo was still around, only four players took part in both World Cups. Thankfully, Meazza and Ferrari were included in that exclusive group.

Picking up where they left off in Rome with those new faces, it was a 2-1 win in extra time via Silvio Piola, Italian legend and Serie A’s greatest goalscorer, to set up a meeting with hosts France. This was a rather big game, what with France hoping to continue the tradition of host nation supremacy and all – not to mention the winner would draw either Brazil, a high-flying favorite, or Czechoslovakia, who had a bone to pick with Italy.

Though the tournament was abroad, Mussolini’s grasp was never far away. Instead of the House of Savoy blue, he requested the Azzurri wear black shirts, putting his fascist ideals on tour. Once again it would be Piola, scorer of the winner and third in a game that ended 3-1 – a game which also included some rough goalkeeping.

And this brought forth perhaps one of the biggest, and more arrogant, personnel missteps in World Cup history. Brazil and Czechoslovakia had participated in a rough’n'tumble 1-1 draw in which they saw two reds on the 12th of June, which then necessitated the replay two days later on the 14th, with the semifinal to be played on the 16th. An absolute scheduling nightmare. Brazil won the replay 2-1 to head to the semis, but after over 200 minutes of World Cup football in 48 hours, Brazilian coach Adhemar Pimenta famously stated he was “resting Leonidas for the final”. Leonidas was, of course, their best player, one of the best players in the world, and scorer of six goals already in the World Cup, including four in the Hollywood action flick known as Brazil 6 – Poland 5 from the opening round.

It would backfire enormously according to FIFA: “a costly error of judgement as the Azzurri prevailed 2-1 in a disappointingly low-key contest”.

With that, Italy were back in their second straight final, to be played in Paris against Hungary. It was the two “old” horses from ‘34, Meazza and Ferrari, who ruled the day. A brace apiece for Gino Colaussi and again Piola, who would fall second to Leonidas on the scoring charts with six, after intricate work and silver platter service from the men sitting inside on either side of Silvio. It’s one of the better replays from the early, early World Cup days, and you can see just how little the goalscorers had to do for their final heroics.

They’d repeated as champions, something only since achieved by Brazil in ‘58 & ‘62, while becoming the first side to win on foreign soil. More importantly, they proved they were well deserving of their crown as football’s kings, with an awfully impressive two-for-two ratio. And once again it was Pozzo, Italy’s great leader – not that Mussolini guy – who’d taken them to glory.

- More World Cup team histories.