Grande Torino
[1] 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; Grande Torino also won a Coppa Italia.
His first moves as Torino president were therefore ones to reorganize 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 counsellor; 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.
Two players retired that year: Oberdan Ussello, who in turn took over the youth team; and Raf Vallone, who devoted himself to a career in cinema and theatre.
In view of the 1941–42 Serie A season, Torino brought in five new players: Ferraris II, who played on the left wing for 1938 FIFA World Cup champions Italy, was signed from Ambrosiana for 250,000 lire; Romeo Menti, a winger with good technique and a powerful shot who was signed from Fiorentina at the recommendation of Ellena; and Alfredo Bodoira, Felice Borel and Guglielmo Gabetto, all from Turin city rivals Juventus.
The turning point came when Felice Borel (who in the future would hold the role of manager), Ellena and Copernicus suggested to Novo that Torino should be set up with the sistema tactic, a new form of the game in those years.
Until then, the most popular tactic was the metodo, a more defensive arrangement whose strength was mainly the counterattack, which had allowed the Italy national team of Vittorio Pozzo to win the 1934 and 1938 World Cups.
In the 1930s, Englishman Herbert Chapman, manager of Arsenal, developed a new tactic called the sistema or "WM" which in practice was a type of 3–2–2–3 formation, with three defenders, four midfielders (two half-backs and two inside-forwards) and three forwards positioned at the points of a "W" and "M".
Chapman, reorganizing the defence, chose to move back a holding midfielder, creating a de facto "stopper", while the full-backs were tasked with marking the wingers.
Ellena was given a position in centre midfield, a role he previously held at Fiorentina, until then the only Italian club to experiment with the tactic, albeit with little success.
The change of tactic also interested Italy manager Vittorio Pozzo, who had already begun to shape his own national side on his "block", Torino.
At the start of the 1942–43 season, available to Hungarian Kuttik, there's a squad that includes top players: experts goalkeepers Bodoira and Cavalli; defenders of expertise such as Ferrini, Ellena and quality like Piacentini and Cassano; in midfield the veterans Baldi and Gallea, with the new Ezio Loik and Mazzola; forward Menti and Ferraris, without forgetting Gabetto and Ossola.
In Torino play the goalkeeper Luigi Griffanti, from the national team, taken from Fiorentina, and the Vercellese Silvio Piola, a striker coming from Lazio, who came to the North to take his family to the Capital, and instead remained stuck in Upper Italy due to the armistice.
Torino would eventually lose tournament, due in part to an unofficial match of the national team, organised for propaganda purposes, held in Trieste two days before the game against Spezia Calcio.
Despite the trip made difficult by the operations of war, the president Novo, underestimating their opponents, rejects the proposal of the Federation to postpone the match against Spezia Calcio who, fresher, leave Milan.
Following the decision of FIGC in 2002, Spezia is authorized by the Italian Federation to exhibit a tricolour badge on the official jerseys which is unique, being the only example of a permanent one in Italy.
In the North of the country was organised a Championship of Northern Italy (officially the Divisione Nazionale) which was placed in continuity with the pre-war Serie A, there being open to all club that would have been entitled to participate in the top flight of the suppressed 1943–44 season.
Ferruccio Novo gave the team the final arrangement with the arrival of goalkeeper Valerio Bacigalupo from Savona, the defender Aldo Ballarin from Triestina, from which he had already "fished" Giuseppe Grezar, the return of Virgilio Maroso from Alessandria, central midfielder Mario Rigamonti from Brescia, and winger Eusebio Castigliano and forward Pietro Ferraris both from Spezia.
Virtually revolutionised in defence and an attack identical to the past, Novo relied on the Torinese Luigi Ferrero, a former Torino winger of the pre-war period, that as a coach had been successful at A.S. Bari.
Along with the return of Romeo Menti, came the midfielder Danilo Martelli from Brescia, the back-stopper Francesco Rosetta of Novara, the goalkeeper Dante Piani, the Vercellese Guido Tieghi.
On the eighth day, 10 November 1946, Bologna arrived at the Filadelfia, unbeaten in seven games, with the keeper Glauco Vanz keeping a clean sheet since the beginning of the tournament.
Prematurely eliminated, Vittorio Pozzo lost his position as sole commissioner of the Italy national team and Ferruccio Novo took his place.
After some friendly matches, the season began in mid-September with a Torino almost identical to that of the previous championships; there was only Franco Ossola permanently in place of Pietro Ferraris, who, at age 36, had moved to Novara.
Torino began the season after a long tour in Brazil where the team met Palmeiras, Corinthians, São Paulo and Portuguesa, losing only once.
The season also saw injuries to Virgilio Maroso, Eusebio Castigliano, Romeo Menti and Sauro Tomà, plus the long suspension for Aldo Ballarin.
The Granata, which debuted with a victory against Pro Patria, suffered a defeat in the second round to Atalanta; the team recovered with five straight wins, including that of the derby, but lost again, in Milan, against the Rossoneri.
Torino would relinquish the lead in the standings, then recapture it, finishing midway through the season on par with Genoa, from which a third defeat was suffered, losing 3–0.
