Grande Torino’s triumphant run was tragically interrupted on 4th May 1949 at 17.05. The Torino players were coming back home from Lisbon after a friendly match against Benfica, planned by the two team captains.

Mazzola and Ferreira had met during a match between Italy and Portugal played in Genoa. Ferreira asked Captain Valentino to play a friendly match against Torino as his farewell to football. Mazzola agreed. The match was set for Tuesday the 3rd May 1949. Torino obtained permission from the Federation to bring the match against Inter forward to April 30th.

The game against Benfica was a truly friendly match. Torino lost the game 4-3 in a stadium packed with forty thousand people, applauding the Benfica captain Ferreira who was to retire from football.

The next day, on the 4th May, the team boarded the I-Elce plane to come back home. The weather was terrible, with low clouds and rain. After the last contact with the radio station, perhaps because of bad weather or a faulty altimeter, the plane crashed into the Basilica of Superga, wrapped in a thick fog. It was 17.05 on 4th May 1949.

Prime immagini della tragedia Prime immagini della tragedia

The shock was huge, and Vittorio Pozzo had the saddest task of all: he had to identify the bodies of his players. In the Superga tragedy, thirty-one people died, including the athletes, officials, journalists and members of the crew.

The accident killed: the players Valerio Bacigalupo, Aldo Ballarin, Dino Ballarin, Emilio Bongiorni, Eusebio Castigliano, Rubens Fadini, Guglielmo Gabetto, Ruggero Grava, Giuseppe Grezar, Ezio Loik, Virgilio Maroso, Danilo Martelli, Valentino Mazzola, Romeo Menti Piero Operto, Franco Ossola, Mario Rigamonti and Giulio Schubert; the coaches Egri Erbstein and Leslie Levesley; the masseur Ottavio Cortina; and the executives Arnaldo Agnisetta, Andrea Bonaiuti and Ippolito Civalleri.

Three of the best Italian sports journalists were also killed: Renato Casalbore (founder of Tuttosport), Renato Tosatti (Gazzetta del Popolo) and Luigi Cavallero (La Stampa). The crew members Pierluigi Meroni, Celeste D'Inca, Celeste Biancardi and Antonio Pangrazi also died that day.

I funerali a Torino I funerali a Torino

Half a million people attended the funeral on 6th May 1949, and they paid tribute to the coffins lined up in Palazzo Madama with a long procession. The entire city of Turin came together around the team, the true symbol of an era.

Members of all Italian teams and some foreign teams were at the funeral. A young Andreotti, on behalf of the Government, and the President of the FIGC, Ottorino Barassi, who made the call as the team took to the field, were also in attendance. Indro Montanelli wrote: "The heroes are always immortals in the eyes of those who believe in them. And so the kids will believe that Torino has not died: it is only away."

Of that great team, only three players survived, those who did not participate in the friendly for various reasons: the second goalkeeper Renato Gandolfi who gave way to Dino Ballarin, Sauro Tomà for a knee injury and Luigi Gandolfi, a young player on the team. Ferruccio Novo was saved because of bad pneumonia, and the great commentator Nicolò Carosio also remained at home for the confirmation of his son.

The 1948/49 season was completed by the Torino youth team, who played the last four matches against the youth squads of other teams. Torino won all the remaining games, finishing the 1948/49 season with 60 points, five more than Inter, second in the ranking. But it was a bitter triumph, marked by the indelible memory of the tragedy.

On the 26th May 1949, a match for the families of the victims was organized at the Stadio Comunale. Torino Symbol, a group of eleven champions provided by other clubs, wearing the maroon jerseys, played against the great River Plate. Sentimenti IV, Manente Furiassi, Annovazzi, Giovannini, Achilli, Nyers, Boniperti, Nordhal, Hansen, Ferrari II, Lorenzi and, the star of Argentina, Di Stefano, played for Torino Symbol. In a full Comunale Stadium, the exhibition match ended 2-2.

Thus the post-Superga period began.