30 goals in 34 games for Italy, a starring role in a World Cup final win, and the leading Serie A goalscorer of all time. Such little data is certainly not enough to describe and capture what a true champion he was, but they can help to give an idea of his greatness on the field of play: Silvio Piola was one of the Azzurri stars during the golden age under Head Coach Pozzo Pozzo, helping the National side triumph in the third International Cup – played between 1933 and 1935 - and at the 1938 World Cup in France.

It is 110 years to the day that he was born, in Robbio in the province of Pavia. He had a glorious career, principally carried out at Pro Vercelli, Lazio and Novara, alongside his time in Italy colours. And it is no surprise that two of these teams - Novara and Pro Vercelli - have their stadiums named after him.

Third in the Azzurri all-time goalscoring list - behind Riva and Meazza – Silvio Piola also scored a brace in the 1938 World Cup final in Colombes, France, against Hungary to give Italy their second successive success in the competition.

In 2011, in its first-ever edition, he was inserted into Italy's Hall of Fame.

Memorabilia related to him adorn and enrichen the collection at the Museo del Calcio; his shirts display the history of our National side and Italian football in general. Among these is the first example of a shirt with numbers on the back from a game involving the Azzurri: it was 20 July 1939 and the World champions faced Finland in Helsinki in a friendly, entering the field of play with numbers on their shirts for the first time in history. Silvio Piola was given, obviously, the number 9 shirt.

From the Robbio-native champion, the Museo del Calcio also has on display the shirt he wore on his debut on 24 March 1935, against Austria in the International Cup. Piola bagged both goals in the 2-0 win and it was such a momentous event that Head Coach Pozzo allowed him to keep the shirt as a memory. Once back home, his mother stiched on the jersey “Austria 0 Italia 2. Piola scored both goals. Piola's first game for the National team”.

Finally, the Museo del Calcio also houses a shirt of Pioli that is blue, not the traditional blue azzurro: in fact, it was the shirt of a European select XI who faced England on 26 October 1938 to mark the 75th-year anniversay of the founding of the English FA (Football Association). Out of the eleven players to represent Europe, five were Italian: as well as Pioli there was Alfredo Foni, Pietro Rava, Michele Andreolo and Aldo Olivieri.

 

In the front cover, Silvio Piola shakes hands with the captain of England before the friendly in Florence in 1952.
In the article photo: Piola in action in the 1938 World Cup semi-final against Brazil, and the shirt from his debut that was then embroided by his mother.