Grande Torino

The Grande Torino was the historic Italian football team of Torino Football Club in the 1940s, five-time champions of Italy, whose players were the backbone of the Italian national team and died on 4 May 1949 in the plane crash known as Superga air disaster.

With this name, although it is commonly used to identify the team that died in the disaster, it defines the entire sports cycle, which lasted eight years, and led to the conquest of five consecutive championships, equaling the record previously set by Juventus of the Quinquennio d'oro, and a Coppa Italia.

In the summer of 1939 the industrialist Ferruccio Novo, at age 42, assumed the presidency of AC Torino, succeeding Giovanni Battista Cuniberti.

Novo was not a patron, but a careful administrator: he had entered Torino at a young age, even doning the jersey as a player, in 1913: a subpar player ("I was a duffer" he said smiling), he continued to follow the team as an enthusiastic fan first, then with the tasks socio-financier and advisor. He also once started a factory of leather accessories with his brother.

His first moves as Torino president were therefore ones to reorganise the club, and following the suggestions of Vittorio Pozzo, make management more similar to the models of the English teams, then at the forefront: he surrounded himself with competent employees, such former players Antonio Janni and Mario Sperone (Italian Champions 1928), and Giacinto Ellena; Rinaldo Agnisetta was given the role of managing director, Roberto Copernicus (who owned a clothing store) was named the role of counselor, Englishman Leslie Lievesley was given the role of youth coach, while the technical direction of the team was given to Ernest Egri Erbstein (who, of Jewish origin, worked incognito because of the racial laws).

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