Ok, we didn’t expect that. Many of you calcio fans – especially on our Twitter page – got confused by the red jerseys below and mistakenly identified the mysterious team from this week as Roma – probably reminding the Giallorossi‘s title exploit in the 1982-83 season.
However, the Scudetto exploit we were hinting at this time was Torino’s. Coached by Gigi Radice, the Granata won their last Italian title in the 1975-76 season at the end of a spectacular battle with cross-town rivals Juventus. That was the last time the two Turin sides would go head-to-head for a trophy and in the picture below, which is from the following year, Torino can be seen boasting the Scudetto patch on their notorious maroon jerseys.
Many prominent players were featured in Torino’s roster that season, though their names may not be very familiar to today’s Italian football fans.
The most prominent figure was striker Paolino Pulici, an authentic Torino legend who played 15 seasons for the Granata, scoring 134 goals out of 335 caps. Ever since retiring, he has been teaching the basics of the beautiful game to children in the first level of amateur club Tritium’s youth academy.
In the picture, one may also recognize Francesco Ciccio Graziani, a future World Champion with the Azzurri at World Cup 1982, while the man wearing the captain armband is Claudio Sala, another legendary Torino figure who has mostly been off the radar of professional football since retiring.