15 March 1931 – Campo Testaccio in Rome
ROME–JUVENTUS 5-0
Rome: Masetti; De Micheli and Bodini II; Ferraris IV, Bernardini and D’Aquino; Costantino, Fasanelli, Volk, Lombardo and Chini. Coach: Burges.
Juventus: Combi; Rosetta and Caligaris; Barale, Varglien I and Vollono; Munerati, Cesarini, Vecchina, Ferrari and Orsi. Coach: Carcano.
Referee: Carraro from Padua.
Scorers: Lombardo in the 6th minute, Volk in the 51st minute, Bernardini on a penalty in the 61st minute, Fasanelli in the 78th minute, Bernardini in the 88th minute.
The 1930-31 championship was the second single group championship and saw at the starting line, among others, Casale, absolute winner of the B series and Legnano who, on 28 September 1930, managed to beat the favorite Genoa, in the match ‘debut. However, it was Juventus who dictated the law and, in the summer, hired coaches Carlo Carcano and Giovanni Ferrari from Alessandria, completing an already very strong team. The Juventus team immediately scored eight consecutive victories and clearly separated Bologna, Napoli and the team that turned out to be the real pursuers in the championship, the Roma of the Istrian top scorer Volk and Doctor Fuffo Bernardini, a great champion (so much so that Vittorio Pozzo did not call him up for the 1934 World Cup, because he was too good) and an equally great coach, capable of winning two historic championships with Bologna (“You only play like this in Paradise”, said Bernardini at the end of a resounding victory) and Fiorentina (capable of giving 9 -11 to the national team).
On 15 March 1931, a month and a half after Juventus won the title of Winter Champion, the Giallorossi beat their Bianconeri rivals with a sensational 5-0, starting a head-to-head match that would end in favor of the Bianconeri on 28 June: by defeating the defending champions Ambrosiana, Juventus mathematically became Italian Champion for the third time, the first of five consecutive championships. After a tight battle that only ended on the last day, Legnano and Livorno were relegated to Serie B, while Casale was saved by one point.
Let’s go back to that famous 5-0. As we have seen, Roma and Juventus are at the top of the table; the public occupies all the seats in the wooden stadium, there are around 30,000 spectators. It is the first time that the Capital has a team that is fighting for the scudetto; the show offered by the public is great. The match is filmed by a film crew to record some scenes that will be used in the production of a film entitled “Five to Zero”, produced by Mario Bonnard.
The story goes that the president of a football team is worried about the captain of the team, who has fallen in love with a variety singer, which is complicated by the protests of his wife, who is absolutely against the team’s play. The finale will see a general reconciliation and the conversion of the president, who will become one of the biggest fans.
First Italian film about the world of football, unhappy like almost all films of the genre. Sicilian Angelo Musco’s marital squabbles and variety shows are more important than the game. It was Osvaldo Valenti who played the part of the center forward, among real players such as Masetti, Ferraris IV, Bernardini, Volk and other Roma players.
VITTORIO POZZO, FROM “STAMPA SERA”
The return match between Roma and Juventus will make history in the history of Italian football both for the result and for the progress of the game and for the general excited tone of the day. If you think. Juventus, the leading team in the championship and the dominating team of the moment, were beaten 5-0, beaten by a score that was gigantic in itself, given the situation. A trend of play that saw the Turin players performing technically poorly and the Romans holding back, again on a technical level, not much better. One of the most nervous environments: outside the pitch, shouting, incitement, a small pandemonium, and on the pitch, a battle instead of a match, a jumble of broken, fragmented, individual, often violent actions, a player injured, three others sent off, and a number of small and large unpleasant and unsportsmanlike incidents. Overall, a bad day of sport, or a day of bad sport, whatever you want to call it.
Let’s start with one of the most miserable aspects of the day, the technical one, and let’s immediately put to rest the observation that Roma won and fully deserved to win. There is no doubt about it: the Romans were the best in drive, in courage, in commitment, in speed. With the ball at the same distance between a Giallorossi and a Bianconeri, eight times out of ten the victory went to the Giallorossi: quicker sprint, more feline movements, more energetic decision. Not only that, but also in terms of game setup, if we can speak of it in yesterday’s great chaos, the Romans were superior to their opponents. Roma opened hostilities in the style befitting the day, that is, showing themselves closed and energetic in defence, showing off great mobility and great commitment in the midline, and basing their advances essentially on the wings. Therefore, we repeat, overall and undisputed superiority of the winning team over the beaten team. Again from a technical point of view, the surprise of the day (if it is still legitimate to talk about surprises in the game, given the changing aspect of the situations to which it gives rise) was provided by Juventus’ behaviour. The shadow, we would say almost the opposite, of what we saw last Sunday against Pro Vercelli in Turin. Uncertainty and inconclusiveness in defense, illogical, tactical conduct in attack. In defense, confusion and misinterpretation of the distribution of tasks, precisely in those points where the opponent logically carried out his offensives: on the wings that is. Vollono never held Costantino in check, and never managed to block the midfielder, and Barale neither stopped Chini nor was a great hindrance to Lombardo.
As for the attack, the day needed, indeed demanded, a game based entirely on the wings, carried out entirely on the ball without hesitation, conducted entirely on the ground. And vice versa, the Juventus attackers started the match and led it almost to the end by holding the ball for a long time, lingering on subtleties, playing tight, resorting to small parables, mid-height movements with a frequency that made one open their eyes in surprise. , given the intelligence of the players who resorted to it. With an opponent all energy and all fire, the slow, minute and high game meant losing the fight on the terrain most favorable to the opponent. And not playing on the wings meant condemning yourself to sterility. It was, one of the wings, the left, marked and harassed to the point of almost absolute immobility, it received no work except from short passes made from close range (the exploitation of the “sudden” element was never resorted to for it) and the other the right winger touched his first ball when the Bianconeri had already collected their first point of the day.
Juventus will have all the extenuating circumstances that they want to grant them for the impressive failure of Rome, but they must loyally and honestly recognize that they set up their game in a way that was contrary to what the needs of the situation were or at least to this wrong position of the game she allowed herself to be carried away by circumstances. Circumstances of a different type were to the detriment of the Turin people and in favor of the Romans, since we are talking about circumstances. Juventus arrived fresh from a magnificent and convincing technical performance. Whoever wins a match in football has the logical and human tendency to show up on the pitch in the following match with the belief of superiority and victory. And here the Bianconeri wanted to create an academy in what the circumstances showed to be a heated battle atmosphere. Roma, on the other hand, arrived enraged by a failure on the opponent’s pitch which was a real blow to their self-esteem. Whoever loses rolls up their sleeves and asks for revenge. And here the Giallorossi behave in front of their fans as if their lives had to depend on the outcome of the match against Juventus.
Every match lost badly provokes a reaction that never fails to have a result in the following competition. The target that is hit by this reaction is not always the same one that the reaction itself determined. The first leg match in the current championship between Roma and Naples gave rise to the failure and incidents of the return match in Naples between Roma and Napoli. Returning from Naples, the one who paid the price was Juventus who could do nothing in this central-southern dispute. The game, played exclusively for the result, kills technique. When the end overwhelms the means in importance, the whole edifice of finesse, technique and tactical action is placed in danger if it does not definitely fall into disrepair. That whole building for which managers, coaches and players work is shaken and shakes to its foundations. Yesterday it was immediately clear, when the teams took the field, that the players were not in the most favorable state of mind and spirit to give the match a tone that was neither serene nor scrupulous. Extreme decision on the part of the Romans, a decision that clearly overwhelmed the opponent; nervousness on the part of the people of Turin which led to moral collapse at the moment in which the harsh and not very pleasant reality of things emerged in all its reality.
Caligaris was yesterday the man who personified this collapse. The progress of the game, the failure, the way in which the second point was scored by the Romans, the various incidents, the expulsion of which he was the victim, hit him like a real blow. Caligaris is a gladiator who will rise again; the way in which he received and felt yesterday’s hard blow shows the man of conscience. And more than one man will have to recover and get back on his feet, making a vigorous effort on himself, especially from a moral and sporting point of view, after what happened yesterday. The two or three scenes that occurred in the middle of the pitch did not do the sport or anyone any good, as Bernardini and Combi agreed, the men on both sides who knew how to maintain a line in the confusion and brawl. of dignity, calm and composure.
And what was said about this match in summary and generic terms was when it was remembered that the first point was due to a prompt intervention by Lombardo while two Turin defenders were marking Volk; that the second was a consequence of the permission to hit granted by Caligaris to Costantino following a misunderstanding caused by a decision by the referee due to a game incident after an energetic strike by Ferraris on Orsi; that the third was a consequence of a penalty kicked by Bernardini following a handball openly committed by Vollono; that the fourth was the consequence of a clear error by Caligaris who clearly missed the ball in an attempt to pass back to Combi; and that the fifth was finally scored by Bernardini, while Combi found himself covered by a small tangle of men created in his penalty area, while half of the players remaining on the pitch played and the other half argued.
