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Silvio Piola (; 29 September 1913 – 4 October 1996) was an Italian footballer who played as a striker. He is known as a highly prominent figure in the history of Italian football due to several records he set, and he is regarded as one of the greatest strikers of his generation, as well as one of the best Italian players of all time. Piola was part of the squad that won the 1933–35 Central European International Cup & the squad that won the 1938 FIFA World Cup with Italy, scoring two goals in the final, ending the tournament as the second-best player and the second-highest scorer.
Piola is third in the all-time goalscoring records of the Italy national team. He is also the highest goalscorer in Italian first league history, with 290 goals (274 in Serie A and 16 in Divisione Nazionale), and also in Serie A history. He played 566 Serie A games, putting him fourth on the all-time list for appearances in Italy's top flight. Piola is the only player to have the honour of being the all-time Serie A top scorer of three different teams (Pro Vercelli, Lazio and Novara Calcio) Piola is also the highest scoring Italian player in all competitions, with 364 goals (391 if his goals in the Divisione Nazionale and for the Italy B team are also included). Throughout his career, including friendlies, Piola scored 682 goals.
After his death, a pair of Italian stadiums were renamed after him: one in Novara in 1997 and another in Vercelli in 1998. In 2011, he was posthumously inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame.
In 1934, he moved to Lazio, who had been on the receiving end of his first Serie A goal on 11 November 1930. He was to spend the next nine seasons there. Piola was the Capocannoniere twice while at Lazio, in 1937 and 1943. Piola was Lazio's highest all-time leading goalscorer with 149 goals until it was surpassed in 2021 by Ciro Immobile. After leaving Lazio, he spent war-torn 1944 at Torino, where he scored an amazing 27 goals in just 23 games. Toward the end of the war, he joined Novara Calcio. Then, from 1945 to 1947, Piola played for Juventus, before moving back to Novara, where he stayed for seven more seasons.
During his final years with Novara, Piola became the oldest player in Serie A history to score two goals in a single league match, a feat which he managed on 1 February 1953, at the age of 39 years, 4 months and 2 days, against his former team Lazio; the record stood until 20 April 2016, when Francesco Totti scored a Serie A brace at the age of 39 years, 6 months and 23 days.
In his last season in 1953–54, Piola turned 40 years old on 29 September 1953, and then he scored one goal in three consecutive matches in November and December against UC Sampdoria, Palermo FC, and Inter Milan, thus becoming the first player to score a Serie A goal after his 40th birthday. He scored his fifth and last goal of the season on 7 February, in a 1–1 draw against AC Milan, and in doing so at the age of 40 years and 129 days, he became the oldest Serie A goalscorer in history, although his record has since been broken by both Alessandro Costacurta in 2007 and Zlatan Ibrahimović in 2023, who both scored a Serie A goal aged 41. With five goals, Piola is the joint-second highest 40-year-old goalscorer in Europe's top five leagues, alongside English League's Stanley Matthews, and Bundesliga's Claudio Pizarro, and only behind Ibrahimović, who scored eight in Serie A. To this day, Piola is still currently the highest all-time goalscorer in Serie A.
Piola went on to play 34 games for Italy and score 30 goals between 1935 and 1952, a tally that would surely have been greater if not for the interruption caused by World War II. He served as the national side's captain from 1940 until 1947. In 1939 he scored a goal with his hand to England 47 years before Diego Armando Maradona. His last international appearance was in 1952, when Italy drew 1–1 with England. Piola is currently Italy's third highest goalscorer of all-time, behind only Giuseppe Meazza, and Luigi Riva. He also co-holds, with Riva, the national team's record for most goals on opposition soil with 13.
| + Appearances and goals by club, season and competitionSingle source here, if player is inactive. If player has not retired, move source next to "Updated" template. | |||
| Pro Vercelli | 1929–30 | Serie A | 0 |
| 1930–31 | 13 | ||
| 1931–32 | 12 | ||
| 1932–33 | 11 | ||
| 1933–34 | 15 | ||
| Lazio | 1934–35 | Serie A | 21 |
| 1935–36 | 21 | ||
| 1936–37 | 21 | ||
| 1937–38 | 15 | ||
| 1938–39 | 9 | ||
| 1939–40 | 10 | ||
| 1940–41 | 10 | ||
| 1941–42 | 21 | ||
| 1942–43 | 21 | ||
| Torino | 1944 | CAI | 27 |
| Juventus FC | 1945–46 | Serie A-B|29||16||colspan="2"|—||29|16 | |
| 1946–47 | Serie A|28||10||colspan="2"|—||28|10 | ||
| Novara Calcio | 1947–48 | Serie B | 16 |
| 1948–49 | Serie A | 15 | |
| 1949–50 | 4 | ||
| 1950–51 | 19 | ||
| 1951–52 | 18 | ||
| 1952–53 | 9 | ||
| 1953–54 | 5 | ||
| + Appearances and goals by national team and year | |
| Italy | 2 |
| 2 | |
| 5 | |
| 9 | |
| 8 | |
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| + List of international goals scored by Silvio Piola | |||||||
| 1 | Praterstadion, Vienna, Austria | 1–0 | 2–0 | 1933–35 Central European International Cup | |||
| 2 | 2–0 | ||||||
| 3 | San Siro, Milan, Italy | 2–1 | 4–2 | 1936–38 Central European International Cup | |||
| 4 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 5 | Letná Stadium, Prague, Czechoslovakia | 1–0 | 1–0 | 1936–38 Central European International Cup | |||
| 6 | Ullevaal Stadion, Oslo, Norway | 2–0 | 3–1 | Friendly | |||
| 7 | 3–0 | ||||||
| 8 | Charmilles Stadium, Geneva, Switzerland | 1–0 | 2–2 | 1936–38 Central European International Cup | |||
| 9 | 2–2 | ||||||
| 10 | San Siro, Milan, Italy | 4–1 | 6–1 | Friendly | |||
| 11 | 5–1 | ||||||
| 12 | 6–1 | ||||||
| 13 | Stadio comunale Luigi Ferraris, Genoa, Italy | 2–0 | 4–0 | Friendly | |||
| 14 | Stade Vélodrome, Marseille, France | 2–1 | 2–1 | 1938 FIFA World Cup | |||
| 15 | Stade olympique de Colombes, Colombes, France | 2–1 | 3–1 | 1938 FIFA World Cup | |||
| 16 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 17 | Stade olympique de Colombes, Colombes, France | 2–1 | 4–2 | 1938 FIFA World Cup final | |||
| 18 | 4–2 | ||||||
| 19 | Stadio Giovanni Berta, Florence, Italy | 1–0 | 3–2 | Friendly | |||
| 20 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 21 | San Siro, Milan, Italy | 2–1 | 2–2 | Friendly | |||
| 22 | Partizan Stadium, Belgrade, Yugoslavia | 1–0 | 2–1 | Friendly | |||
| 23 | Ferencváros Stadion, Budapest, Hungary | 1–0 | 3–1 | Friendly | |||
| 24 | Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland | 1–0 | 3–2 | Friendly | |||
| 25 | 2–1 | ||||||
| 26 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 27 | Stadio Nazionale PNF, Rome, Italy | 2–1 | 2–1 | Friendly | |||
| 28 | San Siro, Milan, Italy | 3–0 | 4–0 | Friendly | |||
| 29 | Letzigrund, Zürich, Switzerland | 1–0 | 4–4 | Friendly | |||
| 30 | San Siro, Milan, Italy | 3–1 | 3–2 | Friendly |
Juventus
Novara
Italy
Individual
See also
External links
Categories: 1913 Births, 1996 Deaths, People From Robbio, Italian Men's Footballers, Men's Association Football Forwards, Fc Pro Vercelli 1892 Players, Ss Lazio Players, Torino Fc Players, Juventus Fc Players, Novara Fc Players, Serie A Players, Serie B Players, Italy Men's International Footballers, 1938 Fifa World Cup Players, Fifa World Cup–winning Players, Italian Football Managers, Cagliari Calcio Managers, Serie B Managers, Footballers From The Province Of Pavia, 20th-century Italian Sportsmen
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