Full name Sauro Tomà Years Team Position Defender | Date of birth 4 December 1925 Playing position Team Apps | |
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Sauro Toma (4 December 1925) is a former Italian footballer who played as a defender. He is the only living former member of the Grande Torino of the 1940s after the death of the second goalkeeper Renato Gandolfi on 30 April 2011.
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He came to Turin in 1947 from Spezia and escaped the Superga tragedy because of the after-effects of an injured meniscus, which forced him to retire at the age of thirty, in 1955.
Spezia
Born in Rebocco, Spezia, he began his football career in Rapallo Ruentes, he played for Vogherese and then in Spezia, after being spotted by a club official of the later during a friendly. Although he loved the role of goalkeeper, there were many players challenging for the role, thus he became a full back.
Torino
His class was noted by observers of many teams, including Juventus and Genoa, but it was Ferruccio Novo who contacted the Ligurian team management on the part of Torino.
His entry in Turin was negative. The move was initially blocked due to alleged lung problems. However, Toma underwent medical examinations of his own and showed excellent health. The fact was that Torino tried to go back on their deal, as they considered the purchase of Toma too challenging (Torino had to exchange five players to Spezia), but Toma won out.
After an immediate apology from Novo, Toma began his career in the Granata, with the role of substituting Virgilio Maroso, a victim of continuous muscle problems.
His debut was the talking point of many major sports newspapers. During Torino's tour of Brazil in 1947, he soon became famous and known by both Italians and Brazilians for his excellent performance.
A great friendship bound him to Valentino Mazzola. The captain was the first person he met in Turin. In fact, he was the only player to stay very close to Mazzola in the period in which he divorced from his first wife (an action disliked by everyone) in order to marry his second wife.
He was nicknamed by his Torino teammates "due metri e settanta" (2.7 meters) because he had difficulty sweeping through balls inside his own area; those he swept often did not exceed three meters.
The tragedy of Superga
A league game caused a knee injury, thus giving way to a stretch of absence. There were many visits to the best orthopedics, but continual knee injuries blocked his presence in the team.
The injury, however, was crucial in deciding the fate of Toma. In fact, when the team left for Lisbon to play against Benfica in a farewell game of Jose Ferreira, the Torino doctor only allowed Maroso to play. On 4 May 1949, after returning from the trip to Portugal, just before landing in Turin the plane crashed on the embankment behind the Basilica of Superga, killing all passengers.
Toma lost all his comrades and friends. He played one more year with Torino, but failed to find a serenity of mind which led him to always think of his condition as a "survivor." There were also disagreements within the club, where Ferruccio Novo threw himself into a series of inconsistent purchases with the hope of rebuilding the team that no longer existed. Toma left the team and moved to Brescia, and he retired from football in 1955, when he ended his career in Bari.
Retirement
Today Toma lives in Turin, near the Stadio Filadelfia, and participate with interest and commitment to all the initiatives that concern the Grande Torino.
Toma today is the only player who has lived starring the legend of the Grande Torino and many are the books he has written for leaving his testimony, the most important of which is Me Grand Turin, where he tells his entire football career from the beginning, to his experience in Turin.