Sandro Mazzola
Sandro Mazzola was born in Turin on 8 November 1942, the son of Valentino Mazzola, captain of the Grande Torino. He was orphaned at age 6 after the 1949 Superga tragedy and spent his childhood on the pitch of the Filadelfia, where his father's Torino trained and played.
Brought to Inter by Benito «Veleno» Lorenzi, he joined the nerazzurri youth system in 1957. He made his Serie A debut on 10 June 1961, in a Juventus-Inter match that was a replay of a suspended game: Inter president Angelo Moratti, to protest the decision to replay it, fielded the Primavera side, and the seventeen-year-old Mazzola scored from the penalty spot for Inter's only goal in a 9-1 defeat. He became a regular member of the first team the following year.
He played for Inter for 17 years, making 570 appearances and scoring 162 goals, winning 4 league titles, 2 European Cups and 2 Intercontinental Cups, and wearing the captain's armband for 7 seasons. He played for the Italian national team for 11 years: he was European champion in 1968 and runner-up at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, where he went down in history for the «staffetta» playmaking rotation with Gianni Rivera.
After retiring he remained at Inter as an executive, then spent three years as sporting director of Torino, during the Cimminelli-Romero management period, leaving the role in June 2003 after a relegation. He died on 19 September 2026 at the age of 83; Inter remembered him as «one of the greatest footballers in history».
Death (September 2026)
A legend of Inter and the Italian national team, he had later also served as Torino's sporting director. Italian football observed a minute of silence in his memory in the following round of league matches.
Timeline
- — Sandro Mazzola, son of Valentino Mazzola and former sporting director of Torino, has died. TorinoOggi Quotidiano Piemontese
- — During the minute of silence for Sandro Mazzola before Juventus-Atalanta, part of the bianconeri curva at the Allianz Stadium turned their backs to the pitch and sang chants. → ANSA Piemonte TorinoOggi
Pages linking here
- Allianz Stadium
- Giovanni Malagò
- Juventus fined over unobserved minute of silence for Sandro Mazzola
- Juventus Football Club
- Minute of Silence for Mazzola Disrupted in Curva Sud
Sources
- TorinoOggi — 19 September 2026
- Quotidiano Piemontese — 19 September 2026