Inter 1964

This article was generously provided to ClubFootball by the British Council, which operates in China as the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy.

Within four years of Internazionale president Angelo Moratti hiring Barcelona boss Helenio Herrera to coach his team in 1960, Inter had won three Scudetti (league titles) and ended Real Madrid's ten-year European hegemony by beating them 3-1 in the 1964 European Cup final.
 
Inter's unprecedented and unrepeated era of success (they won the European Cup in 1965) was down to Herrera's tactical schema of catenaccio, whereby the team played in a more defensive counter-attacking style. It was actually an adaptation of 1930s Italian football with a twist of the Swiss verrou system (first employed by Nereo Rocco's Padua team in the 1950s) - but Herrera made it work, with wing-backs like Giacinto Facchetti chasing down Lusito Suarez's precise long balls. As Antonio Papa and Guido Panico describe in their Social History of Italian Football, it was "calcio all'Italiana", an astute cultural expression.
 
Simon Martin, historian at University College London, agreed. "The success of catenaccio could be said to have mirrored the dramatic Italian post-war recovery that was the 'economic miracle'," he said. "During the post-war reconstruction there was no alternative to rolling up sleeves, if Italy was to regain any dignity. Between 1951 and 1958, the vibrant economy had grown by six per cent per annum, enabling almost half of the average family income to be spent on food by 1960. Italians were better nourished and fitter and their interests turned to sport. Before then, the Italy team had failed to go beyond the group stages of the World Cup from 1950-1962; they had not recovered from the 'Superga' air crash in Turin in May 1949."
 
That disaster destroyed the Torino team that had won four consecutive Scudetti, and ripped the heart out of the national team for years to come. The nature of Inter's two European victories was indicative of the recovery in post-war Italian society that had resulted in a sense of national rebirth by the mid-1960s.
 
Herrera was convinced that fans could aid the team's cause and he persuaded Moratti to establish a group of passionate supporters who would urge the team on at home and throughout Europe. What Martin called the 'economic miracle' allowed Italians to consider combining leisure time and travel. Thirty thousand Interistas, organised by the official Inter Club, saw their team win the 1964 European Cup final in Vienna. The AC Milan team that won same competition at Wembley the previous year had almost no support.
 
Sandro Mazzola scored two goals against Real. His father Valentino had died at Superga and Sandro was adopted as the Inter mascot before becoming the flag-bearer of Herrera's generation. Early pictures show him as a three-year-old with his proud father; by 1964, he stood tall with the European Cup that was a symbol of Inter's rise and Italy's rebirth.

By Ben Lyttleton, December 2003