Giuseppe Meazza (; 23 August 1910 – 21 August 1979) was an Italian football manager and player. Throughout his career, he played mainly for Inter Milan in the 1930s, scoring 284 goals in 408 games for the club, and winning three Serie A titles, as well as the Coppa Italia; he later also played for two seasons for local rivals Milan, as well as Turin rivals Juventus for one season, in addition to his spells with Varese and Atalanta. At the international level, he led Italy to win two consecutive World Cups: in 1934 on home soil, and in 1938 as captain, being named to the All-star Team. He is widely regarded as one of the best players of the 20th century, and one of the greatest Italian strikers in the history of the sport.
Along with Giovanni Ferrari, Guido Masetti and Eraldo Monzeglio, he is one of only four Italian players to have won two World Cups. Following his retirement, he served as a coach for the Italy national team, and with several Italian clubs, including his former club sides Inter and Atalanta, as well as Pro Patria, and Turkish club Beşiktaş; he was Italy's head coach at the 1952 Summer Olympics.
Due to his technical skill, prolific goalscoring, and creative ability, he was often given the nickname Il genio (The Genius) by the Italian press during his career. He has been ranked the fourth-best player in the history of the World Cup. A prolific forward, Meazza won the Serie A top-scorer award on three occasions in his career; with 216 goals in Serie A, he is the fourth all-time highest goal scorer in Serie A, alongside José Altafini, and with 33 goals, he is also the second highest goalscorer for the Italy national team. With 338 goals, he is the third-highest Italian goalscorer in all competitions. He is also the youngest player ever to score 100 goals in Serie A, a feat which he achieved at the age of 23 years and 32 days. San Siro, the principal stadium in his native city of Milan, which is today shared by two of his former clubs, Inter Milan and crosstown rivals A.C. Milan, was named Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in the player's honour on 3 March 1980. In 2011, he was posthumously inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame. Throughout his career, including friendlies, Meazza scored 552 goals.
Early life Meazza was born in Porta Vittoria, Milan. Having lost his father in 1917 during the fighting of World War I at the age of seven, Peppe grew up in Milan with his mother, Ersilia who came from Mediglia, helping her sell fruit at the market. He began playing football at six years old, and started out playing barefoot with a ball made of rags on the streets for a team named the "Maestri Campionesi". At the age of twelve, his mother gave him permission to pursue a footballing career, and he began playing for Gloria F.C.. It was during this time that a fan gave Meazza his first pair of football boots.
At the age of 14, Meazza admired Milan, but was rejected by the team for his small physique. However, he was instead accepted by Milan's cross-city rivals Inter Milan.
Meazza's nickname, "il Balilla" ("The Little Boy"), was given to him in 1927 by his older teammate Leopoldo Conti, who thought "Peppìn", in Milanese dialect, who was only 17 when he joined the senior team, was too young to be associated to the senior team. He was surprised after Inter coach Árpád Weisz decided to give Meazza his debut for Inter in his place, commenting: "Now we even let the Balilla kids play!" The Opera Nazionale Balilla, the Fascist youth organisation which collected all children aged eight to 14 years, was established in 1926, hence why Conti felt it to be a suitable nickname for the young rookie. However, Meazza later scored two goals on his official debut, leaving Conti speechless.
Club career
Inter Meazza scored two goals on his professional debut, which came in a 6–2 win against Milanese Unione Sportiva in the Coppa Volta di Como, on 12 September 1927. The following day, the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport praised his game as "intelligent, fresh, quick". Meazza still holds the record for the most goals scored in a debut season in Serie A, with 31 goals in his first season (1929–30). The next season, he scored five goals in a single game, twice in one season: 6 January 1929 Inter against Pistoiese 9–1 and 17 March 1929 Inter v Verona 9–0. That same season (1928–29) on 12 May 1929, he scored six goals as Inter beat Venezia 10–2. 27 April 1930 was the first time Inter ever played Roma in Milan. Inter won 6–0 and Meazza scored four goals, scoring his first three within three minutes of the game.
With Meazza in the squad, Inter won three national championships in 1930, 1938 and 1940, and helped win the team's first Coppa Italia in 1939. In the 1930 deciding game, he scored a second half hat-trick to tie the game against Genoa after Inter had been down 3–0. He was top-scorer of Serie A three times (1930, 1936, 1938), top-scorer in the pre-Serie A year of 1929 and top scorer of the Central European Cup three times: 1930 (seven goals), 1933 (five goals) and 1936 (ten goals); he finished with a runners-up medal in the competition in 1933.
When Ambrosiana beat Bari in the 1937–38 championship, he scored five goals in a 9–2 victory. The next week he scored a hat-trick against Lucchese. Along with fellow Inter players Ferraris II, Ferrari and Locatelli, Meazza was involved in the Azzurri set-up that won the 1938 World Cup in Paris. That same year, Inter won their fourth Scudetto, while the club's first Coppa Italia success came in 1939.
AC Milan and later career An injury put him out of action for most of 1938–39 and 1939–40, and after having devoted the best part of his career to Inter, Meazza transferred to AC Milan on 28 November 1940. Later in his career he also played for Juventus, Varese and Atalanta. His debut for Juventus, on 18 October 1942, took place in the derby against Torino. This was the last season in which he managed to record double figures in terms of goals scored, helping Juventus to a third–place finish in the league. Following this season the Serie A and Coppa Italia were suspended due to the World War II.
Return to Inter In 1946 he was recalled to Inter as a player-coach. He played 17 games, scoring the last two goals of his career to help an Inter team that was in danger of relegation.
International career Meazza played for Italy national team in the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, both of which Italy won. Apart from captaining the World Cup winning team in 1938, Meazza, along with Giovanni Ferrari and Eraldo Monzeglio, also set a record for being one of the only three Italian players to win two World Cups.
Early career His debut with the Italy national team was in Rome on 9 February 1930 against Switzerland. Then 19-year-old, Meazza scored twice in that game (in the 37th and 39th minutes) to help Italy to a 4–2 victory after they had been down by two goals in only 19 minutes. The next game Italy played was on 2 March 1930 against Germany in Frankfurt, where Meazza scored a goal in a 2–0 win. A few months later, on 11 May 1930, he scored a hat-trick in a 5–0 game as Italy beat Hungary of Markos, Hirzer and Titkos for the first time ever while playing in Budapest. Meazza helped Italy win the Central European International Cup that year; the cup was a three-year international tournament between the strongest national teams of central and eastern Europe.
On 25 January 1931, Meazza scored another three goals in a 5–0 friendly win against France. He also scored two goals in the 1931–32 Central European International Cup campaign, in which Italy finished in second place.
His first fifteen caps were at centre-forward, but in 1933, he showed his versatility during a 3–1 victory over Germany in Bologna, when he was moved to an inside-right position by the Italian coach Vittorio Pozzo, to accommodate teammate Angelo Schiavio, a switch that would help Italy win the World Cup the next year as the goals flowed in. During the tournament, Meazza once again demonstrated his adaptability when he was switched to an inside-left.
1934 FIFA World Cup In the 1934 World Cup, which was hosted by Italy, Meazza appeared in every game for the Italians. On 25 March 1934 in Milan, Italy beat Greece 4–0 in a qualifying match with two goals coming from Meazza. He then scored the final goal in their 7–1 victory over the United States in the 89th minute of their World Cup opener. In the game against Spain, Giovanni Ferrari scored a goal against Ricardo Zamora. The game ended 1–1 and had to be settled the next day. Meazza scored from a corner sent in by Raimundo Orsi in the 11th minute. It was the only goal of the game.
The final against Czechoslovakia in Rome's Stadio Nazionale PNF. After 90 minutes, the two teams were at 1–1. Italy, though, was in far more trouble as the game went into extra-time until Meazza became the inspirer again. His injury became a mixed blessing as the Czechs did not bother to mark him and he made them rue that decision. In the 5th minute of extra time, Schiavio hit a snap-shot past goalkeeper Frantisek Planicka for the winner. Meazza was elected into the All-Star Team of the tournament and won the Golden Ball, the award presented to the best player at each FIFA World Cup finals.
1933–35 Central European International Cup In 1935 he claimed the Central European International Cup again. Alongside Eraldo Monzeglio, Raimundo Orsi, Raffaele Costantino, Alfredo Pitto, Umberto Caligaris, Luigi Allemandi, Virginio Rosetta & Gianpiero Combi, Meazza is one of only nine (all Italian) players to win two editions of the Central European International Cup (1927–30 and 1933–35); he also finished as the runner-up once with Italy (1931–32), thereby winning two gold medals and a silver medal before the tournament was discontinued due to the Anschluss. He holds the all-time record for appearances and goals, sixteen and eight respectively, at Central European International Cup tournaments for the Italy national side. With 8 goals, he is among the all-time top goal scorers in the competition's history.
1938 FIFA World Cup and later career
In the 1938 World Cup hosted by France, Meazza captained Italy, again playing in every match. In the semi-final against Brazil, with the score at 1–0 Italy were awarded a penalty after Silvio Piola was fouled by Domingos da Guia. As Meazza stepped up to take the kick, with a chance to double his team's lead, his shorts fell down, as the elastic in them had ripped; he held them up with his left hand, but he still managed to score, beating the Brazilian goalkeeper Walter from the spot by placing the ball into the corner. The goal enabled Italy to win the match 2–1 and sent them into their second consecutive World Cup final.
In the final, the Italians faced Hungary. Meazza set up goals for Silvio Piola and Gino Colaussi before halftime. The first assist he gave came after a quick exchange with Colaussi, who put Italy up 1–0. The next assist came after he faked a shot, making his defender jump past him, and dribbled past another defender, before sending in a quick pass on the ground for Piola to score. Ten minutes before halftime, after another quick exchange between Ferrari and Meazza, the latter found the unmarked Colaussi with a pass, and the winger netted his second of the game to make it 3–1 at the break. After the tournament, Piola, who scored five goals in France, paid his colleague the compliment of being responsible for his own good performance: "At the FIFA World Cup, I mainly lived off Meazza and Ferrari".
He played his last match for the national team nine years after his debut, on 20 July 1939 at the Olympiastadion in Helsinki, when he captained Italy to a 3–2 win over Finland. In total, he played 53 times with Italy between 1930 and 1939, losing only six matches, and scoring 33 goals; he is currently Italy's second highest goalscorer, behind Luigi Riva.
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