Alfredo Foni

Alfredo Foni (; 20 January 1911 – 28 January 1985) was an Italian footballer in the 1930s and later on a coach, who played as a defender. He is one of only four players to have won both an Olympic gold medal and the FIFA World Cup with the Italy national football team. He linked his football activity mainly to Juventus, achieving his main successes during his fourteen years of militancy in the Turin club at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s. Winner of the 1934-35 Serie A championship and two Italian Cups (1937-1938 and 1941-1942), Foni formed with full-back Pietro Rava, both teammates in Juventus and in the national team, one of the best defensive lines of all time expressed by Italian football, which also proved decisive in the Azzurri's triumphs at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games and at the 1938 World Cup in France; Foni remains one of only four Italian footballers – along with the aforementioned Rava, Sergio Bertoni and Ugo Locatelli – to have won both competitions. Considered as a quick player with his abilities, he was a great man-marker and stood out for his leadership. He was known for teaming up with his teammate Pietro Rava for Juventus and Italy. He was usually regarded to be one of Italy's greatest defenders of all time.

He began his coaching career in Serie A, once his competitive career ended, in 1951 leading Sampdoria, achieving his greatest successes at Inter, a team with which he won two consecutive national championships (1952-1953 and 1953-1954). After coaching the A national team in 1957, with whom he missed out on qualifying for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, his greatest achievement was winning the Fairs Cup four years later with Roma, ending his professional career in 1977 after coaching Lugano. 

Club career
He began his career with his hometown team, Udinese, in the Italian second division. With the adoption of the Serie A format by the first division in 1929, he was signed by Lazio, standing out before spending three years at Padova. In 1934, he was signed by Juventus, then four-time consecutive champions of the Italian championship, a record, extended the following season to a fifth championship.[citation needed] Foni was requested to replace Virginio Rosetta, who was retiring after thirteen years at the club, having participated in the victorious 1934 World Cup.

In the victorious 1934–35 edition of Serie A, Foni played 27 of the 30 matches. However, that would end up being the only time he was Italian champion;  Juve would not win the tournament again until 1950. Between 1935 and 1950, the team was able to be champion twice, but in the Italian Cup. They were the team's first titles in this competition. The first was in the 1937-38 season, immediately preceding the 1938 World Cup, and was obtained in the final precisely against rival Torino. The other came in the 1941-42 season and served to surpass Toro in number of victories in the tournament. Foni stopped playing in 1947. 

In the Italian league, in turn, Bologna and Internazionale (Ambrosiana) alternated in the titles in the second half of the 1930s; and the 1940s were marked by the interruption caused by the Second World War and the dominance of Grande Torino, with the rival also obtaining a fifth consecutive championship. Foni stopped playing in 1947. 

International career
Foni made his debut for the Italian national team at the 1936 Olympics, on August 3 of that year, in a 1–0 victory over the United States in Berlin. The Azzurri won gold and Foni was integrated into the senior team, along with Pietro Rava, his Juventus teammate, and Ugo Locatelli. 

After the Olympics and before the 1938 World Cup, Foni initially played a single match for the national team in 1937 and another in 1938. Before the World Cup, he had won the 1937-38 Coppa Italia with Juventus, in a final against rivals Torino, in Juventus' first victory in that competition. Foni ended up called up for the World Cup, being one of the pieces that rejuvenated the Azzurri, greatly altered in relation to the 1934 FIFA World Cup champion squad, from which only Giuseppe Meazza and Giovanni Ferrari were kept from starters. 

The 1938 team was considered even better than the 1934 team, with the duo of Rava and Foni being seen as safer. They were precisely the only two Juventus players who started for the national team in that Cup. In the competition, Foni entered from the second match. In the debut, Rava had teamed up with Eraldo Monzeglio, one of the remaining champions of the previous Cup. However, coach Vittorio Pozzo was dissatisfied with the Italian performance in the match and from the next game inserted Foni in the place that had been Monzeglio; The match against the Norwegians, made up of amateur athletes, had disappointed those who expected a rout of the Italian professionals. It was Monzeglio's last match for the national team.

Foni did not leave in the following games, debuting in the 3-1 triumph against hosts France. That match was also the occasion when the Azzurri actually wore all black because the opponent also wore blue. The change did not cease to be controversial because the alternative color is associated with fascism. Forming a solid partnership with Rava, he and the entire defensive sector had a great performance, especially in the half-hour of the final, in which Hungary was mostly down 3-2 until Silvio Piola closed the score at 4-2. 

After the World Cup, Foni played fourteen more times for the Azzurri, twelve of them until 1940 and another two in 1942, the last on April 19 of that year, in a 4–0 victory over Spain in Milan. There were no matches for the national team between 1942 and 1945, as a result of World War II - a conflict that also prevented Foni from eventually competing in the hypothetical 1942 World Cup, for which Italy was one of the most capable teams to win.

Management career
After leaving the field, he started his coaching career. He was initially successful at Internazionale, where he was twice Italian champion, in the 1952-53 and 1953-54 championships; at the time, the Milan team's rivalry with its former Juventus team had not yet reached the level of the Derby D'Italia, a classic that would only be formed in the 1960s. His former club would only be champions again in the 1949-50 season. His Inter stood out above all for the defensive, compact and numerous sector, which generated initial criticism overcome with the success achieved. 

Foni went on to coach the Italian national team from December 1954 to March 1958, failing to qualify for the 1958 World Cup, even succumbing too much to pressure after one of the defeats to the point of using an almost entirely new but disjointed team - including foreigners Bruno Pesaola, Miguel Ángel Montuori (Argentines), Dino da Costa (Brazilian) and two veteran Uruguayan champions of the 1950 World Cup, Juan Alberto Schiaffino and Alcides Ghiggia. It was the last World Cup in which Italy was absent until the failure in the qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup. 

A former Lazio player, Foni also had success on the side as coach of the opposite side in another rivalry, the Derby della Capitale: he was champion with Roma, in the 1961 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the first continental title of an Italian team; and also identified with Swiss football, even coaching the Swiss national team in the 1966 World Cup, beating George Best's Northern Ireland in the qualifiers. He died in the neighboring country in 1985.

Honours
Player
Club

Juventus
Serie A: 1934–35
Coppa Italia: 1937–38, 1941–42

International
Italy
Olympic Gold Medal: 1936
FIFA World Cup: 1938

Coach

Club
Inter
Serie A: 1952–53, 1953–54

Roma
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup: 1960–61

References

Other websites





Category:1911 births
Category:1985 deaths
Category:Footballers from Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Category:Sportspeople from Udine
Category:Italian football managers
Category:1938 FIFA World Cup players