Torino and the Superga Disaster

When people think of the city of Turin and the beautiful game, it is Juventus that immediately springs to mind. One of Europe’s most famous clubs and one of Italy’s most successful, their black-and-white striped kit is recognisable anywhere.

Fewer people will think of Torino. They have spent the last decade fighting problems, both on- and off-the-pitch. Declining performances saw them drop out of the top division and languish in the depths of Serie B. After defying the odds and winning promotion back to the top flight in 2005, they were denied their place in Serie A after the club was declared bankrupt after huge tax debts were exposed by false banking guarantees.

After rising from the ashes under a new name, they were allowed to continue in Serie B due to their rich cultural and footballing history, and exactly a year later, won promotion back to the top flight in front of 60,000 fans.

However, things could have been so much different. If we go back to early May, 1949, Torino was the most dominant team in the country. Having won the last title before the outbreak of World War II, they retained their title by a single point in the shortened 1945/46 season.

The Grande Torino team has not come close to being matched since

It was the following season when they really began to cement their status as the undisputed best team of their generation. They cruised to the title by 10 points, scoring 104 goals and conceding just 35 in the 38 games they played that season.

Even more impressive was the following 1947/48 season. They scored a massive 125 goals in 40 games, conceded just 33, and won 19 of their 20 home games. They were simply unstoppable.

The 1948/49 season was no different. They were four points clear with only four games remaining and in the middle of an 18-match unbeaten streak. They had not lost at their Filadelfia stadium in 93 matches – a streak that stretched back six years to 1943.

On the 1^st May, 1949, the record-breaking side had flown to Lisbon for a friendly match. Three days later, 31 passengers and crew boarded the FIAT G-212 plane to return to Turin.

It was a foul day. Heavy rain lashed the city and low, dark storm clouds lurked threateningly in the sky. Visibility was close to zero.

On the hill above Turin is a small town called Superga with an 18^th century basilica. Shortly after 5pm, a man rushed into a restaurant in the square in Superga, urgently requesting the use of a phone to request help.

The plane had crashed into a wall at the back of the basilica. Remains of bodies, luggage and wreckage were spread across a wide area, and the woods around the church were on fire. There were no survivors.

There were no survivors of the Superga disaster

Vittorio Pozzo, a local journalist and former manager of the Italian national side, was the unfortunate individual tasked with identifying the bodies. He knew the players well, having picked ten of them as members of his last Italian squad in 1947.

His words in the newspaper that evening poignantly summed up the situation: “The Torino team is no more. It has disappeared; it is burnt; it is exploded. The team died in action, like a group of shock troops in the war, who left their trenches and never came back.”

The tragedy shocked the entire country. Late special editions of the newspapers were released in Turin, and when news of the disaster spread, work stopped at the city’s FIAT factory for a minute’s silence, and shops all over the city closed their doors.

Further afield, headlines in the newspapers in Milan put aside all rivalry, simply stating ‘Italy cries for its champions: Champions Forever.’ In Rome, the Italian Parliament suspended its sitting when the news came through.

Two days later, over half a million people attended the funerals of the players, journalists and staff that had been killed in the tragedy. The funeral procession was broadcast on national radio. On that day alone, over thirty thousand people made the walk up to Superga to pay their respects and to leave flowers at the crash site.

The history of Torino football club can only be viewed as before-Superga and after-Superga. The club was awarded the Scudetto that year to make it five consecutive titles. However, since that fateful day, the club has only won the Scudetto once. They have never again had a side that approached the quality of that team, referred to as Il Grande Torino. In those five season, the club scored 483 goals and conceded only 165 – a record that has not come close to being matched since.

Valentino Mazzola is viewed by many as the greatest Italian player of all-time

Their captain during that period was Valentino Mazzola. Mazzola was an attacking midfielder, who is often referred to as the greatest Italian footballer of all-time. Given the quality of players that Italy has produced over the years, this is quite some accolade. In five years with Torino, he won five championships, scoring 102 goals and became a truly inspirational captain. He perished at Superga at the age of 30.

The Torino manager at the time also had a huge impact on Italian football. Egri Erbstein was a Hungarian Jew, who had managed Torino before World War II. He was forced out by Mussolini, then taken to a Nazi labour camp when they invaded Budapest. Following the liberation of Hungary, he re-joined Torino as their coach and was responsible for assembling the unbeatable Grande Torino side.

He brought modern training methods to Italy, developing training drills, which his players hated, but that brought outstanding results. He also revolutionised tactical positional play, encouraging his team to utilise all the available space on the pitch, rather than clustering in small areas.

Tragically, he was among the 31 to perish at Superga, but his ideas and method lived on and formed the basis for many of the training methods that would develop in the decades following his death.

It took Italy many years to recover after the tragic events at Superga

However, it was not only Torino that suffered as a result of the tragedy. The club’s players formed the core of the Italian national side at the time, and the Italian national team would not perform well at a World Cup again for over twenty years after the crash. Having won the World Cups in both 1934 and 1938 before the war, the national team would not progress past the first round again until 1970.

Memories and fears from Superga led to the national team travelling to the 1950 World Cup in Brazil by boat. The journey took two weeks and the players arrived unfit and having suffered two weeks of sea-sickness. They were comprehensively beaten, and thus eliminated, in their first match against Sweden.

Naturally, it is impossible to know how the course of history might have been altered had the Superga tragedy not have occurred. Whether Torino could have pushed on and dominated Italy for many more years, potentially at the long-term expense of Juventus, we will never know. Maybe it would be the scarlet shirts of Torino that would be indelibly linked with Turin and the success of Italian football, rather than the black and white stripes of Juventus.

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Solving the Problem of English Managers

The discussion over the next manager of England has been raging for months, although the fires have recently been stoked by the sudden resignation of Fabio Capello, following his comments on the John Terry captaincy issue. The main crux of the argument centres upon the question of whether the next manager should be English.

In an ideal world, the manager of the England national team should be an Englishman. The players have to be English, so the manager should also be English, or so the argument goes. Supporters of this view point to the seeming failures of Sven Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello to win major trophies and often a lack of passion by the two foreign managers in England’s history.

Sven Goran Eriksson was the first foreign manager to take charge of the England national team

Their opponents argue that England should look to appoint the best man for the job, regardless of nationality. If the best man were to be English, then all the better, but that should not be a compulsory requirement. They would point to the failure of Steve McClaren and Kevin Keegan in recent times as proof that substandard English managers simply cannot do the job to a high standard. Similarly, they would point to the fact that, statistically, Eriksson and Capello have been two of England’s best managers in history.

The real reason for the mere existence of this argument is the lack of top quality English managers in the current age. Out of the current 20 managers in the Premiership, only four of them are English. With all due respect to Terry Connor, only three of them are realistic contenders for the national job – Alan Pardew, Harry Redknapp and Roy Hodgson. Add in Stuart Pearce, who has successfully led the U21 team for the past five years, and you have the entire list of potential English England managers.

It is not exactly the most impressive of lists. We point to countries like Spain as having an abundance of top managers. They currently have the choice of names including Guardiola, Rafa Benitez, Vicente del Bosque, Luis Aragones, Unai Emery, Juande Ramos and Quique Sanchez Flores amongst others. However, we forget that between 1986 and 2000, no Spanish manager won the La Liga championship. Just as we now point to the fact that no English manager has won the Premiership in its twenty year history.

Vicente Del Bosque became the first Spanish manager to win La Liga in 16 years in 2000

In England, we view a manager who receives the sack as incompetent. This is in stark contrast with Italy, long renowned for the quality and quantity of the managers that they have produced, where a manager is often likely to be considered more experienced following a sacking, rather than inept.

However, what Italy has that England lacks is a dedicated managerial college. An institution set up specifically to teach the coaching and managerial skills that a prospective coach might need during his career. 

The likes of Fabio Capello, Giovanni Trapatonni and Marcelo Lippi amongst others have passed through its doors, and have returned to help the next generation of Italian managers.

Holland employs a mandatory traineeship period, where prospective managers must serve an apprenticeship at a club. This allows them to learn the theory and fundamentals in a live setting, as well as gaining invaluable work experience under an established coach.

The main issue that both fans and the media in England need to address is the ‘show us your medals’ culture. There seems to be a view that a successful player equals a successful manager. In England, the mandatory UEFA coaching badges are often ignored for the sake of rushing a former player into high-level jobs.

Jose Mourinho never played at the top level, yet is one of the most successful managers

The truth is that it is relatively rare for a top-class player to become a top-class manager. Simply looking at some of the top coaches in England in the last couple of years emphasises this fact. Arsene Wenger was never a top player, but is often recognised as one of the best managers in the Premiership. Similarly, Jose Mourinho made a career at the lower levels in Portugal, but is now the most sought after manager in football. His protégé, Andre Villas Boas, never played professional football at any level, but, despite his ill-fated spell at Chelsea, is still viewed as one of the most promising young manager.

Even looking at the great English managers of the past, there is a recurring pattern. Ron Greenwood, Bill Nicholson, Sir Alf Ramsey and Bob Paisley all had their playing careers interrupted by World War II. Brian Clough’s promising career was cut short at a relatively early age by injury. Sir Bobby Robson had a full career, but never won any silverware.

The overriding theme in all of these examples tends to be that they have a background in football, but still have everything to achieve in the game. They have no won the trophies and accolades as a player, so still have the drive to reach the top as a manager.

Obviously, this is not to say that top players cannot become top managers. There are numerous examples of top quality players that have made the transition to top quality managers. However, we need to avoid the assumption that top players equal top managers. We have seen the failures of the likes of Roy Keane, Paul Ince, Gareth Southgate and Tony Adams in recent years to back this up.

Paul Ince had an ill-fated spell at Blackburn Rovers

There is no reason that managers should expect to start with the big jobs. In the current climate, it is more difficult to climb up the ladder, but it is vital that young managers gain the experience out of the intense media spotlight that comes with managing at the top level. All the afore mentioned names began their careers at smaller club – Sir Alex Ferguson at East Sterling, Rafa Benitez at Real Valladolid, Osasuna and Extremadura, Arsene Wenger at Nancy-Lorraine and Jose Mourinho at Uniao de Leiria.

The issue of English clubs importing the best managers from the continent has also been put forward as a hindrance to young aspiring English managers. The truth is that 15 of the 20 managers in the Premiership are British. However, it is the very top jobs where there is an opportunity of winning silverware that there is the issue. The lack of trophies for the majority of English managers is pointed to as the main barrier to the top jobs.

In that case, maybe English managers need to start taking jobs on the continent, rather than simply whining about the lack of opportunities on offer to them in England. They could look at the example of the much-maligned Steve McClaren, who took the risk of going to Holland, where he led Twente to the Dutch title. Countries such as Holland and Belgium would be ideal starting points, providing the opportunity to gain experience challenging for silverware and competing in Europe.

Steve McClaren, despite having just returned to Twente, is already being talked about for the PSV Eindhoven job – one of the most high-profile club management jobs in the country. He has had the experience of managing in the Champions League. His last spell at Twente led to the opportunity to work in Germany.

He is not the only English manager to have experienced success on the continent. Sir Bobby Robson, Roy Hodgson and Terry Venables have all managed some of Europe’s biggest clubs with varying degrees of success.

Finally, it would be smart to encourage players looking to get into management to go into higher education and gain some form of qualification, such as sports science or sport psychology. This provides transferable skills, as well as demonstrating some level of intelligence. Jose Mourinho has a degree in Sports Science; Rafa Benitez has a degree in Physical Education, while Arsene Wenger has degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics.

Arsene Wenger has degrees in both electrical engineering and economics

The English point to the likes of Paisley, Revie and Clough – all from a working-class background with no form of formal qualifications. However, the truth is that the game has changed since then and new and different skills are required.

A good case study is Tony Adams. One of the greatest central defenders of his generation, he rushed into management with Wycombe, without any of the skills required. After a short-lived and unsuccessful spell, he eventually resigned.

He then took a Sports Science degree at Brunel University, before undertaking a trainee coaching role with Dutch giants, Feyernoord. He worked closely with their reserves and youth sides, as well as serving a secondment at Utrecht, working with the first team there. He also did some scouting work for Arsenal while he was in Holland.

He made the move back to England when he took up the role of assistant manager at Portsmouth under Harry Redknapp. Following Redknapp’s departure, he took over as manager, but was sacked after only 16 games as he fell victim to the short-term culture that has taken over the Premiership.

Tony Adams has followed a sensible path after rushing into management too early

He gained further experience abroad as he surprisingly took over the managerial role at Qabala FC in Azerbaijan, where he improved the club from top-to-bottom before resigning for personal reasons.

Naturally, this career path does not necessarily mean that Tony Adams is going to be a top-class manager. Natural ability is also an inherent part of success. However, he has given himself the best possible grounding.

The establishment of a managerial college, the encouragement and support for English managers to travel abroad and gain experience, and the removal of the ‘show us your medals’ culture should help to develop the next generation of English managers.

In 1977, the choice was between Bobby Robson, Brian Clough and Ron Greenwood. Maybe ten or fifteen years into the future, we will again have a difficult decision for the England job between several high-profile English managers.

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Asiagate Scandal Rocks Zimbabwean Football

It could be a Hollywood script. From kidnappings to death threats; from dressing-room violence to underworld Asian syndicates. The CEO of a national organisation arrested by anti-corruption police and almost 100 players, officials and administrators suspended. However, this is not a big-screen work of fiction. Rather this is the match-fixing scandal that has engulfed football in Zimbabwe.

Dubbed ‘Asiagate’ by the local press, the revelation that members of the Zimbabwean national team and former Zimbabwean champions, Monomotapa, had been working with Asian gaming syndicates to fix matches has rocked the beautiful game in the country.

The 'Asiagate' scandal has rocked Zimbabwean football in the last 12 months

The matches in question occurred between August 2007 and January 2010. The majority of the matches took place in Asia, but it was not simply confined to one continent. Matches against at least 11 different countries are suspected to have been fixed, including Bulgaria, China, Jordan and Singapore.

Furthermore, the 2008 champions, Monomotapa were discovered to have attempted to fix African Champions League matches, as well as having impersonated the national side and fixing matches against Malaysia.

The scandal erupted after an investigation by the Sports and Recreation Commission into the question of why the national side had toured Malaysia in 2009 without having received official authorisation from the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA).

The series of fixed defeats caused Zimbabwe’s world ranking to plummet to as low as 130. However, a number of the players, officials and administrators were lining their own pockets, receiving up to $5,000 for each match lost. Indeed, the CEO of ZIFA, Henrietta Rushwaya, was rumoured to be receiving up to $50k for each match.

Former ZIFA CEO, Henrietta Rushwaya, was arrested on 2nd February on charges of bribery and corruption

She was not the only high-ranking official that has been fingered in the scandal. Jonathan Musavengana, the programmes officer, and FIFA-registered match agent, Kudzi Shaba, have also been linked with the scandal, while it has been suggested that certain high-profile journalists received cash payments for their silence on the matter.

Last month, Rushwaya was arrested and charged with concealing information from a principal, bribery and corruption by the Anti-Corruption Commission, although doubts still remain as to whether she will actually face criminal prosecution. With strong political connections, including close friendships with the President, the deputy Prime Minister and the head of State Security, she reportedly ran a ‘Genghis Khan-lite’ administration that had a ‘propensity to instil fear in her subordinates and those she dealt with through cunning ways of name-dropping.’

In early February, ZIFA announced that 67 players would be suspended, before ZIFA President, Cuthbert Dube, seemingly narrowed the probe to three players – Nyasha Mushekwi, Method Mwanjali and Thomas Sweswe. However, in another twist, the new ZIFA Chief Executive, Jonathan Mashingaidze, announced that all players who undertook trips to Asia between 2007 and 2009 had been suspended.

This totalled 98 players, plus numerous officials and administrators. Former national team coach, Norman Mapeza, plus his assistant, Joey Antipas, have also been suspended. Whilst emphasising that all the players and staff had only been suspended, not banned, ZIFA also made it clear that they would remain suspended until they had cleared their name before an independent disciplinary committee, chaired by Justice Ahmed Ebrahim.

The saga did not end there though. Days after the arrest of Henrietta Rushwaya, ZIFA Chief Executive, Jonathan Mashingaidze, was kidnapped and extorted over $10k for his role in the match-fixing investigation. Further questions were raised when it was revealed that one of the kidnappers worked for the Central Intelligence Organisation. Another ZIFA board member, Benedict Moyo has reported that he fears for his life after receiving threats after the publication of the Asiagate final report.

ZIFA Chief Executive, Jonathan Mashingaidze, was kidnapped over his role in the investigation

Despite threats of life bans from FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s security department last month announced an amnesty period, running until April, during which players and officials are free to volunteer information without punishment. It hopes that it will allow them to take a step closer to identifying the key figures behind the scandal, rather than those simply caught up in it.

The clearest testimony thus far relates to Monomotapa’s African Champions League match with Etoile du Sahel in Tunis in 2009. It comes from the former Monomotapa captain, Mthulisi Maphosa. Maphosa had missed the now-infamous Malaysian tour when the club had impersonated the national side through injury.

Called to speak to ZIFA after a report from a ZIFA councillor, Onisimo Makwengura, which had suggested something fishy about the match, he pulled no blows in explaining what had occurred.

Talking about how there had been no training before the match and how the team coach had arrived late and spoken very little to the players, he detailed how the team had seemed to have conceded very soft goals:

“We conceded our first goal around 15 minutes from the start. Our goalkeeper slipped and fell on the ground when the ball went high. Even a small boy could have avoided that goal. To my surprise, the goalkeeper, who I knew that every time he concedes a goal gets angry, was in that instance smiling.”

He continued to explain how the second goal seemed soft again. However, the major confrontation came just before the post-match press conference. Maphosa explains:

“When they were preparing the chairs, Dhlakama (the head coach) answered a call in English. After that call, he said to me that Sisi called and she was telling him that we were supposed to lose 3-0, so we had lost some money. I then asked who Sisi was, and he said Henrietta Rushwaya."

Monomotapa captain, Mthulisi Maphosa, has spoken out against his former head coach and team manager

Maphosa stormed out of the press conference after a heated argument with Clayton Munemo, the club manager. Confronting the players, he told them that if those responsible for selling the game did not come forward, he would personally tell the team directors.

“That is when the guys sat on the bench said definitely something was happening because Clayton Munemo never sat on the bench as, every three minutes or so, he was on the phone speaking in English. They even said they suspect that it must be the guys from Malaysia they saw when they played as the national team.”

The situation came to a head when Maphosa called the entire technical department together for a team meeting, confronting the coaching staff.

“Taurai Mangwiro (one of the coaches) said he was not part of it as he was surprised to hear Dhlakama telling Vorster (one of the defenders) that they should concede another goal. I then told Clayton how our keeper conceded the first goal. Clayton ended up accusing me of inciting the other guys to revolt. I headbutted him and he stormed out of my room.”

He went on to suggest that the club’s two central defenders, Voster Chitemu and Luckmore Simango, were among the conspiracy, questioning where they had the money to live the lifestyles that they appeared to be leading at the time.

A key figure behind the whole Asiagate match-fixing scandal appears to have been Singaporean betting agent, Wilson Raj Perumal. Perumal had been convicted of match-fixing in 1995, and was arrested again in February last year near Wembley. He was accused of running scams worldwide, including teams from not only Zimbabwe, but also Finland, Togo, Singapore and Botswana among others.

Wilson Raj Perumal has been at the heart of several match-fixing investigations spanning several continents

The fallout from the scandal will affect Zimbabwean football for years to come. The national team is already suffering from the suspension of almost every player that had represented the side for a three-year period. The governing body has been forced into a dramatic overhaul, resulting in the arrest of its former CEO and the suspension of five other board members.

ZIFA has said that ‘it will be reasonable, fair and, to some extent, lenient in the way it will handle those players and officials found to be on the wrong side of the football laws. They are human beings and they are very much aware of the consequences of life bans.’

However, Sepp Blatter has threatened to issue life bans from FIFA and permanently blacklist officials and players involved in any form of match-fixing or cover-up. A paragraph from Zimpapers, a Zimbabwean website sums up the situation succinctly:

“It was the Sunshine City a mere two weeks ago when Sepp Blatter’s delegation flew in direct from Zurich to the VIP suite at the Harare International Airport domestic terminal. Moments after Blatter had left the capital the following day it was freezing cold. And in his wake was a football tsunami. The world football boss had himself delivered the fatal judgment on all the would-be convicted mercenaries.”

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