Football experienced one of the worst air tragedies when the Torino players suffered an accident that killed their entire team.
Football witnessed air tragedies that marked its history, like the accident Munich that claimed the lives of the ‘Busby Babes’ of the Manchester United. These events not only impact the clubs, but leave deep scars on families and survivors.
One of the many tragedies occurred in 1949, when the Torino Football Clubone of the most powerful teams in Italysuffered a devastating plane crash that killed his entire team. This event shocked the world of sports, which undoubtedly remembers these types of events with anguish and pain.
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The tragedy of Torino: the day a plane crash claimed the lives of an entire football team
On May 4, 1949, Torino FC, one of the best Italian teams of the time, returned from a friendly in Portugal when the tragedy would leave a mark on the club’s history. The team had been invited by the Benfica to participate in the captain’s farewell Xico Ferreira. After a stopover in Barcelonathe plane that transported the campus crashed into the Basilica of Superganear Turin, due to adverse weather conditions and pilot error at 5:03 p.m. This fateful accident killed 31 people, including 18 players, coaching staff, managers and journalists.
Days later, with deep pain, the fans and family members prepared to face the funeral of the Granate team, which was massive with more than half a million people. In this way, the club and all of Italy dressed in mourning with tremendous pain that is still remembered every time the calendar turns to May 4.
Torino was coming off an incredible streak, they had won the Series A on four consecutive occasions (1942/43, 1945/46, 1946/47 and 1947/48), and led the 1948/49 edition. But tragedy stopped his brilliant career in its tracks. Despite the pain, the team showed up to play the four remaining games with youth players and the two players who did not travel: Sauro Tomawho could not do it due to an injury, and Renato Gandolfithe substitute goalkeeper. In an unprecedented gesture of solidarity, the rival teams decided to face this renewed Torino only with their own youth players, which allowed the maroon team to crowned champion of that season.
The tributes did not take long to arrive. From Italy, football paid tribute to this great team, and in Argentina, River Plate organized a friendly in Turin to raise funds for the families of the victims. The match, played on May 26, 1949, ended in a 2-2 draw and laid the foundations for a special relationship between both clubs, one that endures to this day. In honor of this friendship, Torino adopted a design inspired by River’s classic crossed band as a substitute shirt.
The tragedy also deeply affected the Italian team, which lost many of its starting players, who were part of the Torino team. For him 1950 World Cupthe Italian team had to travel by boat, due to fear of flying, and their performance was affected.
Source: Ambito
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