Attilio Giovannini

Attilio Giovannini

Personal information
Full name	Attilio Giovannini
Date of birth	(1924-07-30)30 July 1924
Place of birth	San Michele Extra, Italy
Date of death	18 February 2005(2005-02-18) (aged 80)
Place of death	New Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S.
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s)	Defender
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1941–1946	Audace	221	(1)
1946–1947	Bolzano	31	(0)
1947–1948	Lucchese	36	(0)
1948–1954	Inter	191	(2)
1954–1956	Lazio	45	(0)
Total		524	(3)
National team
1949–1953	Italy	13	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Attilio Giovannini (Italian pronunciation: [atˈtiːljo dʒovanˈniːni]; 30 July 1924 – 18 February 2005) was an Italian footballer who played as a defender. Giovannini was a half-back or centre back. He had his best time at Inter, where he appeared in 191 matches from 1948 to 1954, captaining the team in the last four seasons. He played also for Lucchese, Lazio, other minor teams and retired in 1956. He capped for Italy 13 times. Regarded as one of the best Italian defenders of all time, Giovannini was Inter's main stopper in the first half of the 1950s. He was inelegant but was strong and efficient in marking his opponent. He possessed excellent speed, which was a key factor in his task to stop the opposing centre forward, intercept the ball during counter-attacks and cut any opponent out of the action.

Club career

Rocky defender and midfielder, he grows in football in the Audace of San Michele Extra After a brief experience in Bolzano, he stood out for Lucchese, where he made his Serie A debut on 14 September 1947 in a 3-0 home defeat against Genoa.

He was soon purchased by Inter, with whom he played for six seasons, in which he demonstrated great qualities of anticipation and above all an uncommon ability to cut the opponent out of the game, qualities that made him one of the best defenders of his time. With the Nerazzurri shirt he played 191 official matches, winning two championships and forming, with Maino Neri and Fulvio Nesti, an exceptional midline that would project all three into the national team.

At the end of the 1953-1954 season, that of the second scudetto of the Foni era, he was sold to Lazio, giving his place to the emergence Giorgio Bernardin. In the Biancoceleste shirt he is not always able to express himself at good levels, leading him to disputes with the public, one of which, at the end of the SPAL - Lazio match on 2 January 1955 (2-2), costs him a free denunciation for acts contrary to the public decency. He ended his career at the end of the 1955-1956 season. Subsequently he was coach and player of Nissena, in the IV Series, an experience that was marked by a car accident that occurred in the summer of 1957.

International career

Between 1949 and 1953 Attilio Giovannini made a total of thirteen international appearances for the Italy national football team. He didn't manage to score a goal. His national team career began on June 12, 1949, only after the Superga plane crash, in which almost the entire AC Turin team and, due to the club's dominance in Italy at the time, a large part of the national team were killed. So Giovannini was one of the players who rebuilt the Squadra Azzurra after the Superga disaster. National coach Ferruccio Novo put him in the Italian squad for the 1950 World Cup appointed in Brazil. Giovannini played in one game at the tournament. In the defending champions' 2-3 defeat in the first group game against Sweden, Giovannini defended his home country, but he had to watch the second group game against Paraguay from the bench. After these two games, the first World Cup after the Second World War was over for the Italian team, which had started as one of the favorites, after the preliminary round. For Attilio Giovannini, the World Cup chapter also ended after just one match.

Life and death

He emigrated to the United States in 1957 and died there in February 2005 at the age of 80.

Honours

Inter

• Serie A: 1953, 1954

Sources

• La Gazzetta dello Sport