The Italian footballer Sandro Mazzola, who has died aged 83, was a supremely gifted forward who won two European Cups and four Serie A titles during 17 years with his only club, Internazionale of Milan. With Italy’s national side he won the European Championship in 1968 and played in the 4-1 defeat by Pelé’s Brazil in the final of the 1970 World Cup.
He was six years old when his father, Valentino Mazzola, the captain of an invincible Torino team and of Italy, died aged 30, along with the rest of the team, when their chartered plane, returning in bad weather from a friendly fixture in Lisbon in May 1949, crashed into the Superga hill overlooking Turin, killing everyone on board. The demise of Il Grande Torino, as they were known, traumatized the nation.
