February 20, 1938: Bologna Lazio 0-2
- Simon Basten
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Lazio crush the champions
Impressive away win against scudetto holders thanks to a Busani brace
The season so far
The previous season Lazio had arrived second just three points behind scudetto winners Bologna. They had played exceptionally well and if it was not for the numerous injuries, they may have even won the scudetto. Leaders after the first half of the season, the Biancocelesti then fell back but later recovered to clinch a historic second place.
The manager, Jozsef Viola, had obviously been confirmed and there were just a few movements in the summer transfer window. In came defender Maximiliano Faotto (Palermo) and forward Emilio Capri (Vicenza) and out went Luigi Uneddu (Vigevano) and Walter D’Odorico (Torino).
Before the beginning of the season, Lazio had to play the final of the Central European Cup (or Mitropa Cup). They had reached it after beating Hungaria (4-3 on aggregate) and Grasshoppers (8-4 in the two games) just before the summer. They did not play the semi-final since Genoa and Admira had been excluded. On September 12, 1937, they played Ferencváros in Budapest and lost 4-2. The refereeing had not been up to par. In the return game in Rome under belting rain Lazio had even managed to go 4-2 ahead, but in the end collapsed after Silvio Piola had missed a penalty, and lost 5-4.
This season Lazio had started well and after beating Livorno in the ninth fixture they were top of the table with Ambrosiana Inter. But then two consecutive defeats against Ambrosiana Inter and Napoli had brought them down to sixth place. By the end of the first half of the season, they were fifth in the company of Roma, Milan and Torino on 18 points, just one away from second place held by Juventus, Genova and Bologna. Top were Ambrosiana on 23 points. Unfortunately, a couple of defeats, including the derby, meant that Lazio were currently 8th and had lost touch with the top. Today they were facing current champions Bologna who were two points ahead.
The match: Sunday, February 20, 1938, Stadio Littoriale, Bologna
The first half was fairly uneventful apart from a few corners and a couple of half chances for the Biancocelesti which petered out due to bad passing.
In the second it was a different story. In the 47th minute Emilio Capri ran off and crossed from the right; Giovanni Riccardi intelligently headed the ball to Umberto Busani who had no problem in making it 1-0.
Silvio Piola dominated the game with passes once to the left and once to the right and Lazio almost made it two in the 70th minute when Capri had an almost perfect shot which Carlo Ceresoli managed to save into corner. In the 84th minute there was a free kick for Bologna cleared by the defence. Busani got the ball, ran towards the goal and beat the keeper for Lazio’s 2-0.
Great game from Lazio against the reigning champions.
Who played for Bologna
Ceresoli, Fiorini, Pagotto, Gasperi, Andreolo, Corsi, Liguera, Biavati, Maini, Fedullo, Reguzzoni
Manager: Weisz
Who played for Lazio
Manager: Viola
Referee: Barlassina
Goals: 47’ Busani, 84’ Busani
What happened next
Lazio in the second half of the season did not do as well. They lost to weaker teams (Bari 5-1 is a prime example) and could not keep up the pace of the first part of the year. In the end the Biancocelesti finished 8th with a lot of “what ifs”.
The players with most appearances were Monza, Busani and Viani (33) and the leading scorer was obviously the great Silvio Piola with 18 goals.
Let’s talk about Árpád Weisz
Matteo Mariani, a Sky Italia journalist, wrote is his book about the famous Hungarian manager “the fact is that sixty years after his death, all traces of Weisz had been lost. Yet he had won more than anyone else in his era, a glorious era of football, he had won league titles and cups. Far more than the coaches so acclaimed today. [...] Would it be conceivable that one of them could suddenly disappear ? It happened to him”.
Árpád Weisz was born on April 16, 1896, in Solt, south Hungary. He fought in the first world war, was made prisoner in Italy and held in a Trapani war camp. When he went back home, he played four years for Törekvés Sportegyesület from the town of Kőbánya, currently a district of Budapest. In 1923 he signed for Maccabi Brno, the Jewish club of Brno, at that time in Czechoslovakia.
In those years he also played for Hungary earning six caps and was part of the team that took part at the Olympic Games of Paris 1924 even though he never played. They reached the Round of 16 after thrashing Poland 5-0 but surprisingly lost 8-0 against Egypt. At that time the national team was managed by an antisemite and since most of the Hungarians were Jewish, they lost on purpose.
In 1924 he came back to Italy and played a season for Alessandria before joining Inter. After 11 appearances and three goals he suffered a serious knee injury which forced him to retire. He was remembered as a very fast and skillful winger.
At this point he became a manager and was assistant at Alessandria in 1926. That same year he became head coach at Inter. In his first year the Nerazzurri won their group and came fifth in the final round robin. In his second, Inter qualified for the final group but came seventh. He then left to coach Haladás in Hungary only to return in 1929 for the first Serie A league. Inter won the scudetto with a two-point lead over Genova. He was 34 years of age and to this day he is the youngest foreigner to have won the Italian league (the youngest is Armando Castellazzi who won with Inter in 1938, after having been a player under Weisz). In the meantime, he was forced to change his surname to Veisz due to the fascist laws and Inter also had to change and became Ambrosiana. The following season the Nerazzurri came fifth and he moved to Bari where he managed to obtain a difficult survival in Serie A thanks to a final playoff against Brescia. Back in Milan in 1932, the club came second twice and reached the final of the Central European Cup.
After a year in Serie B with Novara, in 1935 he became manager of Bologna substituting Lajos Kovács in January. The team was in a spot of bother but managed to reach a sixth place finish. In 1935-36 Bologna won the scudetto using just 14 players (a record still standing today and probably impossible to beat) and won it again the season after. The Rossoblu also won the prestigious Paris Expo Trophy beating Chelsea 4-1 in the final. In 1937-38 Bologna came fifth.
Due to the fascist racial laws of 1938, he was forced to leave the country. The laws stated that all foreigners who had arrived in Italy after 1919 had to leave. He first moved to Paris and then settled in the Netherlands where he became manager of Dordrecht. In his first year the team managed to avoid relegation and in the next two seasons they reached fifth places.
Everything changed in 1942. Nazi Germany had conquered the country and in August 1942 his entire family were arrested. On October 2 the Weisz family were moved to Auschwitz. They never returned. His wife and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers and died on October 7. He was stationed in Cosel, Poland, for 15 months before being sent to Auschwitz. He died in the gas chambers on January 31, 1944.
For 60 years nobody spoke about him, until in 2007 Marani wrote a biography of the great manager and people started to remember him. Since then, there have been numerous plaques placed in the Stadiums of Bologna and Novara as well as a Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stone) outside the house where he used to live in Bologna. In Bari there is a street named after him. He also figures in a mural on the outside wall at Stamford Bridge, part of Chelsea's 'Say No to Antisemitism' campaign. Weisz features alongside Julius Hirsch and Ron Jones.
Football owes a lot to Árpád Weisz.
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