The History of Italy Football

Spanning well over a century, the history of soccer in Italy is marked by a long list of trophies on club and national team levels, but also by some seriously negative events and scandals. It doesn't really matter how big or small your soccer knowledge is, you probably heard this before: Italian soccer is one of the most tactical and defensive in the World. It's definitely not a soccer that every fan enjoys or that any player will fit in, but its beauty comes from its perfect organization. let's go through the history of soccer in Italy, slicing it in chapters. History of Soccer in Italy Early Years Most people consider the year 1898 the starting point in the history of Italian soccer, as this is the time the first official matches were played, although there wasn't a single championship throughout the country, as the teams would battle in regional ones, under semi-professional rules. In 1929 however, a larger championship was formed, which took the best teams from these regions and made them play head to head in what would soon become the Serie A league, ruled by the Italian Football Federation. It was around this time that the championship title of Serie A received the nickname of "Scudetto", or the small shield, which would mark the current champions with a small picture of a shield with the Italian flag, all throughout the following season. History of Soccer in Italy – Events At least three negative events cannot miss from any history of Italian soccer lesson. The first one was the stripping of Torino's won championship in 1927. Of course, you're probably saying that this was still an early age for soccer and Torino was still playing in its regional championship, so what's the big deal? The importance of this scandal is given by the fact that almost a century later, in 2006, another huge scandal with a close resemblance rocked Italian soccer, involving another Torino-based team, Juventus. Of course, the latest scandal, called "Calciopoli" by the press, was on a much larger scale as it stripped Juventus Torino of two championship titles, relegated the team in the second division and also affected several other teams, such as Fiorentina, Lazio or AC Milan, who did not get relegated but started the 2006/2007 season with a large deficit of points. Another tragic event that will mark the history of Italian soccer forever occurred in 1948, when the plane that was carrying the entire Torino team crashed, ending the lives of everyone on board. Although the season was not yet over, the Italian Football Federation awarded them the title in an unprecedented display of honor in the history of soccer in Italy.