Lisbon – Italian Cultural Institute celebrates the ‘Grande Torino’ football team

Italy’s world-famous journalist, Indro Montanelli, described the players of the historic ‘Grande Torino’ football team as heroes: “Heroes are always immortal in the eyes of those who believe in them. Therefore youths will believe that the Torino teams is not dead but only gone to play an ‘away match’.” The team had written one of the most heroic pages in the history of world football, winning five ‘scudetti’ between 1942-43 and 1948-49. The Grande Torino epic was tragically interrupted in the Superga air crash on 4 May 1949. The team was returning from its last friendly match against Benfica in Lisbon. And precisely the Italian Cultural Institute in Lisbon will celebrate the “Invincible Team” on Tuesday, 26 July by screening the documentary “Benfica-Torino 4-3” by Andrea Ragusa and Nuno Figueiredo, with the attendance of the president of the Grande Torino Museum, Domenico Beccaria, the Museum’s director, Giampaolo Muliari, the curator of the Benfica-Cosme Damião Museum, Luís Lapão, and of the two film directors. The commemoration event is linked to the friendly match between Benfica and the ‘granata’ team scheduled for the evening of 27 July at Lisbon’s Stadio da Luz within the 9^th Edition of the Eusebio Cup. The Italian Cultural Institute explained in a post: “After the screening, the two young directors will explain how the idea of making a documentary on the last days of the Grande Torino first developed: it does not intend to commemorate the tragedy but to celebrate the sporting spirit of one of the greatest football teams of all times from the Portuguese perspective of the events, through witness testimonies and archival materials.”