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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 FC 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 Capocannoniere 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 San Siro 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.
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.
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 Capocannoniere 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.
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.
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.
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.
Meazza was the first Italian football player who became famous worldwide and was the first player with personal sponsors. Unlike his more reserved friend, international teammate, and club rival Silvio Piola, a player with whom Meazza was often compared, he was known for having a much more flamboyant character both on and off the pitch. He loved his cabriolet, champagne and women and was the only player on the national team that was allowed to smoke. Meazza was famous for humiliating the best defenders of the era and for sleeping at a brothel the night before a match. With his plush touch on the ball, he would cause panic in the robust defenders from an era where two-footed tackles from behind were often waved on. Not known for having a particularly high work rate, sometimes he would not get out of bed until his teammates were already finished training. He also loved the Tango and used this proficiency to make him unpredictable on the field and could score goals at fox-trot tempo.
He was a superb dribbler who despite his speed, never had a single brylcreemed hair out of place, and although he was not tall, was remarkably good in the air. Meazza created many chances for his teammates and scored goals as well. His bending goals "a foglia morta", the "dead leaf technique", in particular from free-kicks, were also feared by goalkeepers. As an offensive playmaker, he was a brilliant passer, two-footed, had remarkable field vision, and was noted for his balance and agility on the ball, as well as his control, turns and spins.
His trademark goals were ones where he would collect the ball at the half-line, dribble through several opponents with a series of twinkle-toed shuffles, and turns, until arriving in front of the goal, where he would stop and invite the goalkeeper to attack him like a matador, before faking a shot, then dribbling past the beaten goalkeeper to slot home easily. In away games, the defenders would often foul and hack him to avoid being humiliated.Paolo Facchinetti, La Grande Ambrosiana. L'Inter di Meazza contro Juve e Bologna: storia e numeri di uomini e fatti leggendari, GEO Edizioni, Empoli, 2001 "Gol alla Meazza" and "finte alla Meazza" have since become popular sayings for Italian football fans to describe a truly inspiring goal off the dribble or a series of jukes. His goals "ad invito", where he would invite the goalkeeper out before dribbling around him is yet another popular saying. An accurate penalty taker, Meazza once said, "There is nothing worse than having a penalty kick saved by a keeper who didn't understand the fake."
Vittorio Pozzo, the mastermind coach behind both Italian World Cup victories, wrote of Meazza: "He was a born forward. He saw the game, understood the situation, distributed the ball carefully and made the team offence operate. Having him on the team was like starting the game 1–0 up."
Sports journalist Gianni Brera, who considered Meazza to be the greatest footballer in the history of the game, called him "Il Folber", and dubbed his style of play the "fasso-tuto-mi", because he considered him to be the complete central midfielder and a nimble acrobat. When describing Meazza, Brera said: "He was only Italian that stood out amongst the sensational Brazilians and Argentines". Following Meazza's death in 1979, Brera also added: "The world was full of great football players, maybe some even tougher and more consistent than him, but to us it seemed that one could not go beyond his sudden inventions, his ingenious runs, his peremptory yet never condescending dribbling, his solo break-away runs towards the usual stray victim, the opposing goalkeeper."
Peppino Prisco, who became vice-president of Inter Milan in 1963 and won every major trophy possible with the club, also considered Meazza to be the best player of all time, and said of him: "Meazza was great, unbeatable, even if he would occasionally run into a frightful crisis, caused by his intense sexual activity and his passion for the game. When he took over on the field, he did things that left the mouth ajar."
Bruno Acari IV, who played with Meazza at A.C. Milan and later coached, once said that "Peppino Meazza never wanted to hear about tactics. He was a simple person who became a king when he entered the goal box, with a technical ability that was comparable to Pelé."
| + Appearances and goals by club, season and competition | |||
| Inter Milan | 1927–28 | Divisione Nazionale | 12 |
| 1928–29 | Divisione Nazionale | 33 | |
| 1929–30 | Serie A | 38 | |
| 1930–31 | Serie A | 24 | |
| 1931–32 | Serie A | 21 | |
| 1932–33 | Serie A | 20 | |
| 1933–34 | Serie A | 26 | |
| 1934–35 | Serie A | 22 | |
| 1935–36 | Serie A | 28 | |
| 1936–37 | Serie A | 24 | |
| 1937–38 | Serie A | 28 | |
| 1938–39 | Serie A | 6 | |
| 1939–40 | Serie A | 0 | |
| Milan | 1940–41 | Serie A | 14||6||1||0||||||||||15|6 |
| 1941–42 | Serie A | 5 | |
| Juventus FC | 1942–43 | Serie A | 10 |
| Varese | 1944 | Alta Italia | 7 |
| Atalanta | 1945–46 | Divisione Nazionale | 2 |
| Inter Milan | 1946–47 | Serie A | 2 |
| + Appearances and goals by national team and year | |
| Italy | 6 |
| 5 | |
| 2 | |
| 5 | |
| 7 | |
| 2 | |
| 2 | |
| 1 | |
| 3 | |
| 0 | |
| + List of international goals scored by Giuseppe Meazza | |
| Exhibition game | |
| 2–0 | Friendly |
| 1927-30 Central European International Cup | |
| Friendly | |
| 1931-32 Central European International Cup | |
| Friendly | |
| 1931-32 Central European International Cup | |
| Friendly | |
| 3–1 | Friendly |
| 3–2 | Friendly |
| 1933-35 Central European International Cup | |
| 5–2 | 1933-35 Central European International Cup |
| 1934 FIFA World Cup qualifier | |
| 1934 FIFA World Cup | |
| 1934 FIFA World Cup | |
| Friendly | |
| 4–2 | Friendly |
| 2–1 | Friendly |
| 2–1 | Friendly |
| 1936-38 Central European International Cup | |
| Friendly | |
| 6–1 | Friendly |
| 4–0 | Friendly |
| 1938 FIFA World Cup |
Individual
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