As Italy prepares for the World Cup Finals in South Africa next summer many of the Azzurri old-timers will recall the most poignant episode in the country’s sporting history.

Italy has won four world titles — second only to Brazil with five. Yet the Italians could, perhaps, have gone ahead of the South Americans but for that tragic day Wednesday May 4, 1949.

The plane carrying the leading club Torino, or The Grande Torino, as they were known en route home from a testimonial match in Lisbon for Xico Ferreira, the Benfica stalwart, was diverted for a still obscure reason from Malpensa Airport, near Milan, to the smaller Caselle,Turin.

A storm raged as Fiat G212, crashed into a wall at the Basilica Superga, a short distance from Turin, killing all 31 passengers — the 18 players ,coaching staff and the cream of Italian journalists. In that one horrific moment the bulk of the Italian squad, already pinpointing the assault on the 1950 World Cup finals in Uruguay, had been wiped out.

Almost a decade later a similar tragedy befell Manchester United’s Busby Babes at Munich-Riem airport where there were 23 fatalities, including seven players while others were so severely injured their careers ended prematurely

Vittorio Pozzo, coach to the Italian 1934 and 1938 World Cup winning teams was a remarkable man, a magnificent conversationalist, a motivator supreme.

To have dinner with him and Danny Blanchflower, as I did on occasions, was an illuminating experience. He died aged 82, in December 1968 with a fantastic record of 64 wins, 17 draws and 16 defeats from 97 games.

Pozzo never felt so low as when the Torino news broke for he had been a significant influence, a father figure, for those Torino players, a close friend and confidante of the newspapermen.

At the time Pozzo said: “This was the finest, strongest team in Italy. A team that took years to put together. It had won four Italian championship, the war prevented them from winning more (it went on to win the fifth that year).

“ Torino produced passages of play as shining and resplendent as precious metals. It won the love and enthusiasm of the crowds. In its best moments it had surmounted every obstacle in its way, scoring goals with the facility a millionaire gives away thousand lire notes,

“Italy’s international side is left mutilated, largely empty of content. Ten of its players had from time to time been drawn from this strong, exuberant Torino.“

European football in that era did not obtain the mass worldwide publicity it does today when youngsters can quote ad infinitum names of the teams in Serie A, the Bundesliga and La Liga.

Throughout Italy in 1949, however, they were sporting giants. The idols of youngsters — among them superstar and captain Valentino Mazzzola, whose son Sandor hit the heights of international football in the Sixties. Two players missed the trip, Tomas Suara (injured) and the Hungarian Ladislav Kubala who had been invited as a guest player but withdrew due to his son’s illness.

“Torino’s rise between 1943 and 1949 came against a backcloth of war, austerity, and hardship,” said Frank Dunne in a recent issue of FIFA World.

“Torino was devastated after the Allied invasion, bombed 39 times, and then split in two by the subsequent civil war between Italian Partisans and Fascists. The exploits of Torino, admired throughout Europe, provided Italians with something of which they could feel proud.”

Torino went on to win the championship the year of the crash using youth players in the final three fixtures. Unfortunately though the club has never recovered from the Superga disaster.

Promotion and relegation became part of their way of life — so much so they were named the yo-yo club.

A far cry from the wealth and adulation in the all-conquering golden years before the crash.

Italy, World Cup winners in 1934 and 1938, failed in the 1950 and 1954 World Cup group finals stages, were eliminated in the 1958 qualifiers by Northern Ireland’s 2-1 win at Windsor Park and went on to become champions in 1982 and 2006.

Thousands attended the mass at the Basilica of Superga earlier this year to mark the 60th anniversary of the Torino disaster when current captain Alessandro Rosina read out the names of the 31 victims engraved on a headstone at a ceremony watched by millions on television. That spot where the team perished is sacred ground to Italian football followers.