Interesting read on: "La Grande Inter"

[Diavolo]

CHI VIENE DOPING? – BOMBASTICA INTERVISTA DI FERRUCCIO MAZZOLA: ERAVAMO TUTTI IMPASTICCATI, ALCUNI SONO MORTI, ALTRI HANNO AVUTO MALATTIE GRAVISSIME – FACCHETTI L’HA QUERELATO, ORA IL PROCESSO…

Alessandro Gilioli per “L’espresso”

Sono campioni che hanno fatto la storia del calcio italiano quelli che passeranno, uno dopo l'altro, in un'aula del tribunale di Roma a parlare di doping. Come Giacinto Facchetti, splendido terzino sinistro e oggi presidente dell'Inter; o come Sandro Mazzola, Mariolino Corso, Luis Suarez. E ancora: Tarcisio Burnich, Gianfranco Bedin, Angelo Domenghini, Aristide Guarneri. Tutti chiamati a testimoniare da un loro compagno di squadra di allora, Ferruccio Mazzola, fratello minore di Sandro, che vuole sentire dalla loro voce - e sotto giuramento - la verità su quella Grande Inter che negli anni '60 vinse in Italia e nel mondo. "Non l'ho cercato io, questo processo: mi ci hanno tirato dentro. Ma adesso deve venire fuori tutto", dice Ferruccio.


(Giacinto Facchetti e Bedi Moratti-U.Pizzi)


A che cosa si riferisce, Mazzola?
"Sono stato in quell'Inter anch'io, anche se ho giocato poco come titolare. Ho vissuto in prima persona le pratiche a cui erano sottoposti i calciatori. Ho visto l'allenatore, Helenio Herrera, che dava le pasticche da mettere sotto la lingua. Le sperimentava sulle riserve (io ero spesso tra quelle) e poi le dava anche ai titolari. Qualcuno le prendeva, qualcuno le sputava di nascosto. Fu mio fratello Sandro a dirmi: se non vuoi mandarla giù, vai in bagno e buttala via. Così facevano in molti. Poi però un giorno Herrera si accorse che le sputavamo, allora si mise a scioglierle nel caffè. Da quel giorno 'il caffè' di Herrera divenne una prassi all'Inter".

Cosa c'era in quelle pasticche?
"Con certezza non lo so, ma credo fossero anfetamine. Una volta dopo quel caffè, era un Como-Inter del 1967, sono stato tre giorni e tre notti in uno stato di allucinazione totale, come un epilettico. Oggi tutti negano, incredibilmente. Perfino Sandro...".

Suo fratello?
"Sì. Sandro e io, da quando ho deciso di tirare fuori questa storia, non ci parliamo più. Lui dice che i panni sporchi si lavano in famiglia. Io invece credo che sia giusto dirle queste cose, anche per i miei compagni di allora che si sono ammalati e magari ci hanno lasciato la pelle. Tanti, troppi...".

A chi si riferisce?
"Il primo è stato Armando Picchi, il capitano di quella squadra, morto a 36 anni di tumore alla colonna vertebrale. Poi è stato il turno di Marcello Giusti, che giocava nelle riserve, ucciso da un cancro al cervello alla fine degli anni '90. Carlo Tagnin, uno che le pasticche non le rifiutava mai perché non era un fuoriclasse e voleva allungarsi la carriera correndo come un ragazzino, è morto di osteosarcoma nel 2000. Mauro Bicicli se n'è andato nel 2001 per un tumore al fegato. Ferdinando Miniussi, il portiere di riserva, è morto nel 2002 per una cirrosi epatica evoluta da epatite C. Enea Masiero, all'Inter tra il '55 e il '64, sta facendo la chemioterapia. Pino Longoni, che è passato per le giovanili dell'Inter prima di andare alla Fiorentina, ha una vasculopatia ed è su una sedia a rotelle, senza speranze di guarigione...".


(Sandro Mazzola-LaPresse)


A parte Picchi e forse Tagnin, gli altri sono nomi meno noti rispetto ai grandi campioni.
"Perché le riserve ne prendevano di più, di quelle pasticchette bianche. Gliel'ho detto, noi panchinari facevamo da cavie. Ne ho parlato per la prima volta qualche mese fa nella mia autobiografia ('Il terzo incomodo', scritto con Fabrizio Càlzia, Bradipolibri 2004, ndr), che ha portato al processo di Roma".

Perché?
"Perché dopo la pubblicazione di quel libro mi è arrivata la querela per diffamazione firmata da Facchetti, nella sua qualità di presidente dell'Inter. Vogliono andare davanti al giudice? Benissimo: il 19 novembre ci sarà la seconda udienza e chiederemo che tutti i giocatori della squadra di allora, intendo dire quelli che sono ancora vivi, vengano in tribunale a testimoniare. Voglio vedere se sotto giuramento avranno il coraggio di non dire la verità".

Ma lei di Facchetti non era amico?
"Sì, ma lasciamo perdere Facchetti, non voglio dire niente su di lui. Sarebbero cose troppo pesanti".

Pensa che dal dibattimento uscirà un'immagine diversa dell'Inter vincente di quegli anni?
"Non lo so, non mi interessa. Se avessi voluto davvero fare del male all'Inter, in quel libro avrei scritto anche tante altre cose. Avrei parlato delle partite truccate e degli arbitri comprati, specie nelle coppe. Invece ho lasciato perdere...".
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Translation:


Italian champions that have made the history of Football, will be called to testify in front of Rome's tribunal on doping. Sandro Mazzola, Mariolino Corso, Luis Suarez, Tarcisio Burnich, Gianfranco Bedin, Angelo Domenghini, Aristide Guarneri aswell as Ferruccio Mazzola will all be called to reveal what was behind La Grande Inter's success, in Italy and the World, during the 60's. Ferruccio added: "I haven't longed for a trial. I just happen to be involved now. All the truth will finally be made public".

Q: What are you referring to Mr Mazzola?
Mazzola: Even if just a bench player, I was part of that Inter too. I've seen with my eyes how player were treated. I saw Helenio Herrera providing pills that were to be placed under our tongues. He used to experiment on us bench players only to later give them to the first team players. Some of us would eventually spit them. It was my brother Sandro that suggested me that if I had no intention of taking them, to just run to the toilette and spit them. Eventually Herrera found out and decided to dilute them in coffee. From that day on "Il Caffè Herrera" became a habit at Inter.

Q: What was inside those pills:
A: Don't know for sure but I believe anphetamins. Once, after a Caffè Herrera, it was prior to a Como vs Inter (1967), I suffered 3 days and nights in a state of complete allucinations, just like an epilletic. Nowdays, everybody denies, even Sandro......

Q: Your brother?
A: Yes Sandro and I, since I decided to speak out, simply don't talk to eachother. He says that dirty laudry should be washed at home, on the contrarary, I believe that it's right to speak out, above all for a number of my former teamates, a number of which are either very sick or dead.

Q: To whom are you referring too:
A: The first was Armando Picchi, captain of the team, that died aged 36 due to a cancer. Then came Marcello Giusti, a reserve player, that died for a brain cancer during the 90's. Carlo Tagnin, a great player that would never refuse a pill, since he wanted to further his career as long as possible, he died in year 2000.
Mauro Bicicli and Ferdinando Miniussi have left us respectively in 2001 and 2002. Enea Masiero, with Inter from 1955 to 1964, is undertaking chemotherapy, whilst Pino Longoni is on a wheel chair.

Q: But for Picchi and Tagnin, all the other players are not that famous.
A: That's cause us bench players would take more of those damned white pills, were treated as cavies. I talked about all this in my autobiography ('Il terzo incomodo', scritto con Fabrizio Càlzia, Bradipolibri 2004), that eventually lead to the opening of athe Rome trail.

Q: Why?
A: Cause after the book was published, I was sued by Inter President Mr Facchetti. They want to go in front of a jury? Very well, the 19th of November, their will be a 2nd hearing. All the players of that team, I mean all the players that are still alive, have a choice to testify. I just want to see if they won't have the courage to say the truth under oath.

Q: Weren't you once freids with Facchetti?
A: Yes, let's just leave Facchetti out of this, I'd have to mention heavy stuff.

Q: Do you think that after the trial we will have another kind of image upon that winning Inter?
A: Frankly, I don't know and I'm not interested. If I wanted to cause real damage to Inter, within the book, I could have added a number of other episodes. I could have added details about fixed matches and bribed referees, especially in Cup ties. Never mind......

[Warro Bantan]

Thanks Diavolo, let the truth be heard! Always thought Inter and Juve were crooked.

[Diavolo]

Originally Posted by Warro Bantan

Thanks Diavolo, let the truth be heard! Always thought Inter and Juve were crooked.

My duty Warro, my duty

[Gio-mania]

hehe....... thts interesting
the only time in the post-war era inter won trophies was drugged and corruption...

HAHAHA

[Diavolo]

Originally Posted by Gio-mania

hehe....... thts interesting
the only time in the post-war era inter won trophies was drugged and corruption...

HAHAHA

Pratically in one line you pretty much summed it up

[mk18]

oh how nice it would be if they took away the trophies 'under their name' from that time!

so one scudetto would gofor us, another would go for juve, and one for bologna (between 1960-1966)

one CL would go to real madrid, and one to benfica.

besides the 2 EUSA cups they won

[Diavolo]

Originally Posted by mk18

oh how nice it would be if they took away the trophies 'under their name' from that time!

so one scudetto would gofor us, another would go for juve, and one for bologna (between 1960-1966)

one CL would go to real madrid, and one to benfica.

besides the 2 EUSA cups they won

He he

This thread would be incomplete without the following article, published on The Times, not so long ago

This Football Life: Moratti in a real fix over Inter's glorious but tainted
history
By Brian Glanville (The Times)


FOR Inter Milan fans, Massimo Moratti, the club president, can do nothing
right. At the San Siro they usually jeer him. While AC Milan, their eternal
city rivals, flaunt the European Cup, Inter have not won the scudetto, the
Italian title, since 1989, when they left Milan a dozen points behind.

Under the draconian managership of the flamboyant Helenio Herrera, the
European Cup was won twice, the scudetto four times. In the foyer of Inter's
training ground stands a bust of Angelo Moratti, below it a most effusive
eulogy. But when Keith Botsford, my American colleague, and I were
investigating what we called The Years of the Golden Fix, it transpired that
Inter's European victories of the 1960s were the fruit of bribery and
corruption in which Angelo Moratti played a crucial part in a process
implemented by two men also now dead: Dezso Solti, the Hungarian fixer, and
the serpentine Italo Allodi. Inter's secretary, he became general manager of
Juventus when we showed them to be guilty of an abortive attempt to "buy" a
Portuguese referee.

Three years in a row, Inter made offers to referees in the second legs of
European Cup semi-finals to be played at the San Siro and twice it worked,
in 1964 and 1965, when they went on to win the final. On the third occasion,
in 1966, Gyorgy Vadas, a brave Hungarian official, refused to be bribed.
Real Madrid held out and went on to lift the trophy.

In 1964, the sufferers were Borussia Dortmund, who had a key player sent
off. In 1965 it was Liverpool, victims of two dreadful decisions by Ortiz de
Mendibil, the Spaniard. Botsford and I knew that Vadas refused to be
tempted; getting him to talk years later was the problem.

Having flown to Budapest, we at last managed to meet him in the dim
cafeteria of Radio Budapest, where everybody involved in Hungarian football,
good guys and bad, seemed to be working. Large, good-natured, anxious, he
refused to talk; he had plainly suffered enough. Not another international
match would he get after that night. It was left to Peter Borenich, a
talented, persistent young local journalist, to get him to speak and publish
what he said in Only The Ball Has A Skin.

Solti had been with him and his linesman, Vadas said, from morning to night.
When they were alone in his hotel room, Solti offered him enough money to
buy five Mercedes if he bent the match for Inter, payable in dollars -
double if Inter won on a late penalty, five times as much were they to win
by a penalty in extra time.

On the morning of the match, Vadas and his linesman were invited to Angelo
Moratti's villa for lunch. He at once gave each a gold watch. During the
meal he told Solti to buy them colour television sets and a host of
electrical appliances. But Vadas refereed the match impeccably. At
half-time, Solti invaded his dressing-room, ranting that he had failed to
give three penalties. At 5am the next day, Solti phoned his friend, Gyorgy
Honti, secretary of the Hungarian football federation, to tell him that
Vadas had cheated Inter out of the match. Back in Budapest, Vadas was faced
by an outraged Honti.
Yet Angelo Moratti is still revered.

[slicknick]

I would not expect this from any club but if I were to expect it from somebody it would be either Inter or Juve

[Billy_Montreal]

Ironic how the team that likes to paint themselves as the VICTIM competing against the 'Dons of Serie A' as the management of Inter have implied are now caught in the midst of a doping scandal...
Knowing Moratti he will probably open his mouth and dig a deeper hole for himself

[Dr Milano]

Originally Posted by Gio-mania

hehe....... thts interesting
the only time in the post-war era inter won trophies was drugged and corruption...

HAHAHA

lmao