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Giuseppe Meazza
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- See San Siro for the stadium officially known as Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
Giuseppe "Peppino" Meazza (23 August 1910 – 21 August 1979) also known as il "Balilla", Peppin, and sometimes Pepp, was an Italian footballer playing mainly for Inter in the 1930s, scoring 243 goals in 361 games for the club. He is still considered by many to be one of the greatest - if not the greatest - Italian players of all-time, as well as the greatest Italian forward of all time.
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Encyclopedia
- See San Siro for the stadium officially known as Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
Giuseppe "Peppino" Meazza (23 August 1910 – 21 August 1979) also known as il "Balilla", Peppin, and sometimes Pepp, was an Italian footballer playing mainly for Inter in the 1930s, scoring 243 goals in 361 games for the club. He is still considered by many to be one of the greatest - if not the greatest - Italian players of all-time, as well as the greatest Italian forward of all time. He began his career as all out striker, but showed his skill and ability by also becoming an accomplished midfielder, playing for more than half of his career as inside forward. He was a great leader with excellent shooting and dribbling, an eye for the pass and, despite his middle height, an exceptional heading ability .
His nickname, "il Balilla", was given to him in 1927 by his older teammate Leopoldo Conti, who thought "Pepp", who was only 17 when he joined the senior team, was too young to be associated to the senior team, and was surprised after Inter coach Arpad Weisz decided to give Meazza his debut for Inter in his place. He scored two goals on his debut in a 6-2 win against Milanese Unione Sportiva in the Coppa Volta in Como, leaving old "Poldo" Conti speechless The "Gazzetta dello Sport", the day after his official debut in the Italian championship on the 12th of September, 1927, praised his game "intelligent, fresh, quick", something that didn't happen very frequently during those days.
Meazza was born in Porta Vittoria, Milan. Having lost his father at the age of seven during the tragic fighting of World War I, young Peppe grew up in Milan with his mother, Ersilia who came from Mediglia, helping her sell fruit at the market. However, it was football that was his true calling. She hid his shoes so he would not waste his time, so young Peppin learned to play barefoot. He began playing at six years old on the streets on a team named the "Maestri Campionesi" who played with a ball made of rags. At twelve years old he finally got permission from his mother to pursue being a footballer, and began playing for Gloria F.C.
Meazza was the first Italian football player who became famous worldwide, and was the first player with personal sponsors. He loved his cabriolet, champagne and woman. Meazza was famous for humiliating the best defenders of the era and for sleeping at a brothel the night before a match. He would not get out of bed until his teammates were already done practicing. He also loved the Tango and used this proficiency to make him unpredictable on the field. He was a superb dribbler who despite his speed, never had a single hair out of place, and although he was not tall, was remarkably good in the air. Meazza created many chances for his teammates and scored goals as well. His goals "a foglia morta", the "dead leaf technique", were also feared by goalkeepers. He was a brilliant passer, both-footed, had remarkable field vision and was noted for his turns and spins.
His trademark goals were ones where he would collect the ball at the half-line, dribble through several opponents with a series of twinkle-toed shuffles, and turns, until arriving in front of the goal, where he would stop and invite the goalkeeper to attack him like a matador, before faking a shot, then dribbling past the beaten goalkeeper to slot home easily. In away games, the defenders would often foul and hack him to avoid being humiliated . "Goals à la Meazza" and "finte alla Meazza" have since become popular sayings for Italian football fans to describe a truly inspiring goal off the dribble or a series of jukes. Meazza once said, "There is nothing worse than having a penalty kick saved by a keeper who didn't understand the fake."
Vittorio Pozzo, the mastermind coach behind both Italian World Cup victories, wrote of him: "He was a born forward. He saw the game, understood the situation, distributed the ball carefully and made the team offense operate."
Gianni Brera called him "Il Folber", and his style of play the "fasso-tuto-mi" because he considered him the complete central midfielder and a nimble acrobat. "He was only Italian that stood out amongst the sensational Brazilians and Argentines" said Brera.
Peppino Prisco, who became vice-president of Internazionale in 1963 and won every trophy possible with the club considered him the best of all time and said, "Meazza was great, unbeatable, even if he would occasionally run into a frightful crisis, caused by his intense sexual activity and his passion for the game. When he took over on the field, he did things that left the mouth ajar."
Bruno Acari IV, who played with Meazza on AC Milan and later coached, once said that "Peppino never wanted to hear about tactics. He was a simple person who became a king when he entered the goal box, with a technical ability that was comparable to Pelé."
During the 1958 world cup, while watching the final between Sweden and Brazil, after one of the commentators said that nobody had ever seen a player like Pele before, Franco Rossi began screaming that it was not true, that Meazza was better .
San Siro, the principal stadium in his native city of Milan, which is today shared by Internazionale and crosstown rivals AC Milan, is now officially called Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
Club career
At the age of 13, Meazza admired AC Milan, but was rejected by them for being too skinny. However, he was received with open arms by Inter Milan. He was randomly observed juggling a rag ball in the street by an Inter scout and quickly signed. They fed him steaks so he would get bigger and stronger. At first he was used to fill a gap in defense instead of being allowed to follow his attacking instinct, but luckily Inter's junior coach later corrected the mistake. He scored two goals on his debut in a 6-2 win against Milanese Unione Sportiva in the Coppa Volta di Como.
Meazza still holds the record for the most goals scored in a debut season in Serie A, with 31 goals in his first season (1929-30). The year before, when Serie A didn't exist, and the Italian Championship was composed of 2 leagues (North and Central-South) with playoffs, Meazza played 29 matches, scoring 38 goals at the age of 18 years. He scored 5 goals in a single game, twice in one season: 6 January 1929 Inter v Pistoiese 9-1 and 17 March 1929 Inter v Verona 9-0. That same season (1928/29) on 12 May 1929, he scored six goals as Inter v Venezia beat 10-2. April 27th 1930 was the first time Inter ever played AS Roma in Milano. Inter won 6-0 and Meazza scored four goals.
With the powerhouse Meazza on the squad, Inter (re-christened Ambrosiana while under Fascist law) won 3 national championships in 1930, 1938 and 1940, and helped win the team's first Coppa Italia in 1939. The 1930 championship was Inter's first since 1920 and they were considered underdogs to teams like Bologna, Torino, Juventus and Genoa. It was Meazza's dazzling form that clinched the inaugural Serie A title. In the deciding game, he scored a second half hat-trick to tie the game against Genoa after Inter had been down 3-0. He was top-scorer of Serie A 3 times (1930, 1936, 1938), top-scorer in the pre-Serie A year of 1929 and top scorer of the Mitropa Cup three times: 1930 (7), 1933 (5) and 1936 (10).
During the 1933 season, Meazza made a bet with Giampiero Combi, goalkeeper of Juventus and captain of the 1934 World Champion Italian National Team. Combi challenged Meazza, claiming that nobody, not even Meazza, could sidestep him to score a goal. Meazza accepted the challenge. Combi also made another bet with Meazza. A few weeks earlier, while training with the national team, Meazza scored a splendid bicycle kick against the Juventus goalkeeper. Combi wagered that he could not repeat it in an official game. The next game between Ambrosiana Inter and Juventus was played in the Arena Civica di Milano on May 25th 1933. Meazza managed to score two stupendous goals. The first goal was an identical overhead kick against. For the second goal he dribbled through a series of defenders, amongst them the Italo-Argentine Luis Monti another 1934 World Champion, before faking out Combi, dribbling past him, and scoring a tap-in goal. Combi immediately got up and shook Meazza's hand.
In 1937, it was the day of the game against Juventus in Milan with only an hour before the game and Peppin had still not shown up. The directors became nervous and sent a masseuse and another trainer in a car to find him. They found him in bed, sleeping profoundly and snoring. Without even washing his face, they dragged him up and rushed him to the stadium. While lying down in the back seat Peppin told them of love filled night and said he felt like a lion. The Lion Meazza entered the dressing room and without any squabbling, they quickly gave him his number 9 jersey. He scored two goals that game and was the best on the field. Inter won the game 2-1 and beat Juventus for the Serie A scudetto by two points.
When Ambrosiana beat Bari in the 1937/38 championship, he scored five goals in a 9-2 smashing. The very next week he scored a hat-trick against Lucchese. Goalkeeper Gaviorno from Novara once proclaimed after an 8-0 thrashing by Inter: "He is no centre forward, this Meazza is a demon".
An injury put him out of action for most of 1938/39, and after having devoted the best part of his career to Inter, Meazza transfered to AC Milan on November 28th 1940. In almost a century of rivalry, Meazza is the only man who has ever come close to bridging the chasm between the two clubs. The next February 9th, before the derby with Inter, Meazza cried in the dressing room, but then he scored the equalizer for Milan in a 2-2 draw. He wore the red and black shirt from 1940-1942. Later in his career he also played for Juventus, A.S. Varese 1910 and Atalanta Bergamo. In 1946 he was recalled to Inter as a player-coach to help a team that was in danger of relegation.
National team career
Meazza played for Italy in the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, both of which Italy won. Apart from being on and captaining the first team to win a World Cup when not the host in 1938, Meazza, along with Giovanni Ferrari, Guido Masetti and Eraldo Monzeglio, also set a record for being the first players to win two World Cups (consecutive ones). Up until today, they are still the only Europeans to have achieved this record.
His debut with the Azzurri was in Rome on February 9th, 1930 against Switzerland. Still only nineteen years old, Meazza scored twice that game (in the 37th and 39th minutes) to help Italy to a 4-2 victory after they had been down by two goals in only 19 minutes. The next game Italy played was on 2nd of March 1930 against Germany in Frankfurt, where Meazza scored a goal in a 2-0 win. A few months later, May 11, 1930, he scored a hat-trick in a 5-0 game as Italy beat Hungary for the first time while playing in Hungary. Meazza helped Italy win the Dr. Gero Cup (the forerunner to the European Championship) that year.
On January 25th 1931, Meazza scored another three goals in a 5-0 win against France.
During the Dr. Gero Cup game against Austria on February 22nd, Meazza helped Italy overcome an early deficit to victory after Horvath had scored in the 4th minute. While dribbling the ball in attack, he noticed two defenders closing down on him. He stopped the ball with the sole of his shoe, making both defenders fall to the ground, before racing towards goal, faking Josef Smistik, dribbling around Roman Schramseis, drawing out the keeper Rodolphe Hiden, faking and dribbling around him, making the off balance keeper crash into Schramseis, before tapping the ball into the net for the equaliser and one of the most beautiful goals in soccer history. Italy won 2-1.
His first fifteen caps were at center-forward, but in 1933, he showed his versatility during a 3-1 victory over Germany in Bologna, when he was moved to an inside-right position by the Italian coach Vittorio Pozzo, to accommodate teammate Angelo Schiavio, a switch that would help Italy win the World Cup the next year as the goals flowed in. During the tournament, Meazza once again demonstrated his adaptability when he was switched to an inside-left, when needed.
In the 1934 World Cup, which was hosted by Italy, Meazza appeared in every game for the Azzurri. On March 25 1934 in Milan, Italy beat Greece 4:0 in a qualifying match with two goals coming from Meazza. He then scored the final goal in their 7-1 victory over the United States in the 89th minute in their World Cup opener. In the game against Spain, Giovanni Ferrari scored a goal against "Il Divino" Ricardo Zamora after the latter was supposedly fouled by Peppin. Meazza was himself almost knocked unconscious by collision of heads with Jacinto Quincoces. The game ended 1-1 and had to settled the next day. Il "Balilla" scored from a corner sent in by Raimundo Orsi in the 11th minute. Meazza was almost knocked unconscious in the crash with the desperate keeper. It was the only goal of the game. There were claims that the replacement Spanish goalkeeper, Juan José Nogués, who was replacing the injured Zamora who was hurt in a clash with Schiavio in the first game, was fouled by Meazza in the play. However, footage exists that exonerates the Italian of any wrong doing. Meazza only ever scored one time against Zamora, in a friendly match.
The semi-final was against Austria. A deluge a few hours before kick-off left the San Siro pitch resembling a bog, but Meazza, who knew this ground better than anybody on the Italian team, made light of the conditions to book his country's place in the final. Playing his fourth game in a week, Meazza out-played an Austrian forward, dribbled past him, then collided into the grounded Austrian goalkeeper, Peter Platzer, who had pounced on the ball to quell the attack. The ball came loose, hit the post and bounced to Enrique Guaita, to score the only game of the match.
55,000 fans turned out to see the final against Czechoslovakia in Rome's Stadio Nazionale PNF. Italy suffered badly after Meazza was injured in a tackle. He soldiered on though. Cries of a conspiracy were heard after in the 54th minute after Meazza, who was playing in the final even though carrying an injury from the semifnals, punched Rudolf Krcil in the back in retaliation for a hard foul, without being disciplined by referee Ivan Eklind, who had also officiated the semi-final. After ninety minutes the two teams were 1-1. Italy, though, was in far more trouble as the game went into extra time, until Meazza became the inspirer again. The Czechs did not bother to mark him and he made them rue that decision. In the 96th minute, Eraldo Monzelgio sent a long ball to the hobbled Peppin from the right side of the Italian defense. Meazza, who was being left alone on the wing to drift in and out of the match, recovered sufficiently enough to send a slicing pass to Guaita that unlocked the Czech defense, and then moving on to set a series of blocks to free up his strikers. The Roma midfielder then slid the ball to Schiavio, who hit a snap-shot past Frantisek Planicka, another legendary goalkeeper of the era, for the winner five minutes into the extra period. Meazza was elected into the All-Star Team of the tournament.
After the World Cup victory, Meazza represented Italy against England in the infamous "Battle of Highbury", the Azzurri's first game since winning the World Cup five months earlier. England and Italy had drawn, 1-1, 18 months earlier in Rome, in their only previous meeting. Even though Italy lost 3-2, Meazza salvaged some pride by scoring two goals four minutes apart in the 58th and 62nd minutes, in very heavy rain. The first was the result from a skillful move by Guaita that set Meazza free to crown the straggling raid with a fine rocket shot that beat the goalie. The second on a header after he made the most of a free-kick from Attilio Ferraris. He was only denied an equalizer by the woodwork and by some fine saves by England's goalkeeper, Frank Moss who playing in what was to be his last international.
In the 1938 World Cup hosted by France, Meazza captained Italy to another victory, again playing in every match. After a very difficult opening game against Norway, he petitioned Vittorio Pozzo, to allow the team a night off to relax. In his wisdom, Pozzo saw that his players needed to unwind after having trained for so long in preparation of the tournament and allowed the players a night of indulgence. Meazza was reported to have spent the night with two beautiful French girls.
Another of his memorable moments in that tournament was the goal he scored against Brazil in the semi-final. Italy were awarded a penalty after Silvio Piola, the team's new center forward, was chopped down in the box by "the Encyclopedia", Domingos da Guia. The Brazilian goalkeeper Walter, who was famous for hypnotizing his opponents and for saving penalties back in Brazil, arrogantly claimed he was certain he would save the shot. Meazza made no fuss, but as he stepped up to take the kick, his shorts fell down because the elastic around the waist had earlier been pulled and ripped by a defender. Meazza, without letting this stress him, pulled up his shorts with one hand and shot past the confused Walter, who was still busy laughing. His celebrating team-mates surrounded him until a new pair of shorts were produced. The goal sent Italy into their second consecutive World Cup final. It was his last goal for Italy.
In Italy's 4-2 win over Hungary in the final, Italy's dynamic inside-forward partnership of Meazza and Giovanni Ferrari, took hold of the game. Meazza set up goals for Silvio Piola and Gino Colaussi before halftime. The first assist he gave came after a quick exchange with Colaussi, who put Italy up 1-0. The next assist came after he faked a shot, making his defender jump past him, and dribbled past another defender, before sending in a quick pass on the ground for Piola to slam home. Ten minutes before half, after another quick exchange between Ferrari and Meazza, Peppin found the unmarked Colaussi with an illuminating pass, and winger netted his second of the game to make it 3-1 at the break. After the tournament, Piola, who scored five goals in France, paid his colleague the compliment of being responsible for his own good performance: "At the FIFA World Cup, I mainly lived off Meazza and Ferrari".
He played his last match for the national nine years after his debut, on the 20 July 1939 at the Olympiastadion in Helsinki when he captained Italy to a 3-2 win over Finland.
Meazza won 2 Central European International Cup titles, in the 1930 and 1935.
That cup was a 3 year international tournament between the strongest national teams of central and eastern Europe.
He played 53 times with Italy, losing just 6 matches. He also scored 33 goals.
Career records
Serie A record
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|1927-28||rowspan="13"|Internazionale Milano||rowspan="13"|Serie A||33||12||||||||||||||||
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|1928-29||29||38||||||||||||||||
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|1929-30||33||31||||||||||||||||
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|1930-31||34||24||||||||||||||||
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|1931-32||28||21||||||||||||||||
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|1932-33||32||20||||||||||||||||
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|1933-34||32||21||||||||||||||||
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|1934-35||30||18||||||||||||||||
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|1935-36||29||25||||||||||||||||
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|1936-37||26||11||||||||||||||||
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|1937-38||26||20||||||||||||||||
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|1938-39||16||4||||||||||||||||
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|1939-40||0||0||||||||||||||||
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|1940-41||rowspan="2"|Milan||rowspan="2"|Serie A||14||6||||||||||||||||
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|1941-42||23||3||||||||||||||||
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|1942-43||Juventus||Serie A||27||10||||||||||||||||
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|1945-46||Atalanta||Serie A||14||2||||||||||||||||
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|1946-47||Internazionale Milano||Serie A||17||2||||||||||||||||
443||268||||||||||||||||
443||268||||||||||||||||
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Meazza is still today the third top-scorer ever in the Italian Championship.
National team record
(Italy's score shown first)
Playing Honours
F.C. Internazionale Milano
A.C. Milan
Italy
Also
- Meazza was one the first Italians to coach abroad, coaching Besiktas J.K. of Turkey in 1947-1948.
- While serving as a youth coach for Inter, he met Sandro Mazzola. Understanding the boys pain at losing a father while so young and recognizing his skills, Meazza took young Sandro under his wing, and convinced him to sign for Inter.
- Meazza is a FIFA Hall of Champions Inductee and Italian Hall of Fame Entrant. He was selected by IFFHS/FIFA as the 2nd Best Italian player as one of the best 25 World Players of the 20th Century.
- With 33 goals, Meazza is still the the Italian national team's second highest scorer. His record stood until Gigi Riva tied and eventually broke it on June 9th 1973, also in a game against Brazil.
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