.jpg) Piola playing forPro Vercelli | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1913-09-29)29 September 1913 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Robbio, Italy | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 4 October 1996(1996-10-04) (aged 83) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Gattinara, Italy | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Striker | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Youth career | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1925–1928 | Veloces 1925 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1928–1929 | Pro Vercelli | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1929–1934 | Pro Vercelli | 127 | (51) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1934–1943 | Lazio | 227 | (143) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1943–1944 | Torino | 23 | (27) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1945–1947 | Juventus | 57 | (26) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1947–1954 | Novara | 185 | (86) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Total | 619 | (333) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1933–1935 | Italy B | 6 | (11) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1935–1952 | Italy | 34 | (30) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Managerial career | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1953–1954 | Italy (assistant) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1954–1956 | Cagliari | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1957 | Cagliari | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Silvio Piola (Italian pronunciation:[ˈsilvjoˈpjɔːla]; 29 September 1913 – 4 October 1996) was an Italianfootballer who played as astriker. He is known as a highly prominent figure in the history of Italian football due to several records he set, and he is regarded as one of the greatest strikers of his generation, as well as one of the best Italian players of all time. Piola was part of the squad that won the1933–35 Central European International Cup & the squad that won the1938 FIFA World Cup withItaly, scoring two goals in the final, ending the tournament as the second-best player and the second-highest scorer.[2]
Piola is third in theall-time goalscoring records of the Italy national team.[3] He is also thehighest goalscorer inItalian first league history, with 290 goals (274 inSerie A and 16 inDivisione Nazionale), and also in Serie A history.[4][5] He played 566 Serie A games, putting him fourth on the all-time list for appearances in Italy's top flight. Piola is the only player to have the honour of being the all-time Serie A top scorer of three different teams (Pro Vercelli,Lazio andNovara)[6][7][8] Piola is also thehighest scoring Italian player in all competitions, with 364 goals (391 if his goals in the Divisione Nazionale and for theItaly B team are also included).[9] Throughout his career, including friendlies, Piola scored 682 goals.[10]
After his death, a pair of Italian stadiums were renamed after him:one in Novara in 1997 andanother in Vercelli in 1998. In 2011, he was posthumously inducted into theItalian Football Hall of Fame.
Piola began his career with Italian clubPro Vercelli, making hisSerie A debut at age 16 againstBologna on 16 February 1930. Piola scored 13 goals in his first season. On 8 February 1931, he scored ahat-trick againstNapoli; at 17 years and 132 days old, Piola set the record as the youngest player to score a hat trick inEurope's top five leagues, surpassingJosé Iraragorri ofAtlético Madrid, who was 17 years and 337 days when he achieved the feat againstReal Sociedad on 23 February 1930.[11] As of the 2025 season, this record still stands. On 29 October 1933, Piola scored six goals, thejoint-most goals scored in a single match in Serie A, in a 7–2 win overFiorentina.[12] He went on to score 51 goals in 127 appearances in Serie A for Pro Vercelli.
In 1934, he moved toLazio, who had been on the receiving end of his first Serie A goal on 11 November 1930. He was to spend the next nine seasons there. Piola was theSerie A top scorer twice while at Lazio, in 1937 and 1943. Piola was Lazio'shighest all-time leading goalscorer with 149 goals until it was surpassed in 2021 byCiro Immobile.[13] After leaving Lazio, he spent war-torn 1944 atTorino, where he scored an amazing 27 goals in just 23 games. Toward the end of the war, he joinedNovara. Then, from 1945 to 1947, Piola played forJuventus, before moving back to Novara, where he stayed for seven more seasons.
During his final years with Novara, Piola became the oldest player in Serie A history to score two goals in a single league match, a feat which he managed on 1 February 1953, at the age of 39 years, 4 months and 2 days, against his former team Lazio; the record stood until 20 April 2016, whenFrancesco Totti scored a Serie A brace at the age of 39 years, 6 months and 23 days.[14][15]
In his last season in 1953–54, Piola turned 40 years old on 29 September 1953, and then he scored one goal in three consecutive matches in November and December againstSampdoria,Palermo, andInter Milan, thus becoming the first player to score a Serie A goal after his 40th birthday.[16] He scored his fifth and last goal of the season on 7 February, in a 1–1 draw against AC Milan, and in doing so at the age of 40 years and 129 days, he became the oldest Serie A goalscorer in history, although his record has since been broken by bothAlessandro Costacurta in 2007 andZlatan Ibrahimović in 2023, who both scored a Serie A goal aged 41.[17] With five goals, Piola is the joint-second highest 40-year-old goalscorer in Europe's top five leagues, alongsideEnglish League'sStanley Matthews, andBundesliga'sClaudio Pizarro, and only behind Ibrahimović, who scored eight in Serie A. To this day, Piola is still currently the highestall-time goalscorer inSerie A.[4]
His first game forItaly came againstAustria on 24 March 1935, when he also scored his first goals for the team in the form of a brace to help Italy defeat the hosts Austria 2–0 in the1933–35 Central European International Cup.[18] He was aWorld Cup winner in1938, when he scored two of Italy's goals in the 4–2 victory overHungary;[18] he finished the tournament as the second highest scorer and was named the second-best player, also earning a place in theTeam of the Tournament.
Piola went on to play 34 games for Italy and score 30 goals between 1935 and 1952, a tally that would surely have been greater if not for the interruption caused byWorld War II. He served as the national side'scaptain from 1940 until 1947. In 1939 he scored a goal with his hand toEngland 47 years beforeDiego Armando Maradona.[19] His last international appearance was in 1952, when Italy drew 1–1 withEngland. Piola is currentlyItaly's third highest goalscorer of all-time, behind only Giuseppe Meazza, andLuigi Riva. He also co-holds, with Riva, the national team's record for most goals on opposition soil with 13.[20]
Regarded as one of the greateststrikers of all time, Piola was widely renowned for his goalscoring ability throughout his career, and his eye for goal.[21] He was considered to be a modern and well-rounded player during his time, as he used his physical attributes, intelligence, and control to play with his back to goal, and lay off the ball for teammates in order to provide them withassists.[22][21] Piola's vision, work-rate, and technical ability, as well as his passing ability, made him a tactically versatile player,[23] who was capable of playing in several positions, and he was deployed on thewing, inmidfield, or as a creativeadvancedplaymaker orsecond striker on occasion.[22][21] Piola particularly excelled as acentre-forward, however; his speed, positional sense, offensive movement, and opportunism enabled him to lose his markers with his attacking runs and receive his team-mates' deliveries or pounce on loose balls in the area. Piola was also known for his powerful and accurate finishing ability with his head and both feet, from any position on the pitch, which made him a prolific goalscorer throughout his career.[22][21][24][25] Due to his agility and athletic ability, Piola also excelled in the air, and he was capable of scoring spectacular acrobatic goals fromvolleys andbicycle kicks.[23][21] Despite his talent and his reputation, he was occasionally accused ofdiving throughout his career. Unlike his legendary international team-mate, club rival, and friendGiuseppe Meazza,[26] however, with whom he was often compared,[27] Piola was much more reserved both on and off the pitch, and he preferred to score through efficiency and pragmatism rather than flamboyance.[23][28] On top of his playing ability and prolific goalscoring, Piola also stood out for his longevity throughout his career.[29]
| Club | Season | League | Coppa Italia | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| Pro Vercelli | 1929–30 | Serie A | 4 | 0 | — | 4 | 0 | |
| 1930–31 | 32 | 13 | — | 32 | 13 | |||
| 1931–32 | 31 | 12 | — | 31 | 12 | |||
| 1932–33 | 32 | 11 | — | 32 | 11 | |||
| 1933–34 | 28 | 15 | — | 28 | 15 | |||
| Total | 127 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 127 | 51 | ||
| Lazio | 1934–35 | Serie A | 29 | 21 | — | 29 | 21 | |
| 1935–36 | 27 | 19 | 2 | 2 | 29 | 21 | ||
| 1936–37 | 28 | 21 | 1 | 0 | 29 | 21 | ||
| 1937–38 | 28 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 15 | ||
| 1938–39 | 21 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 22 | 9 | ||
| 1939–40 | 23 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 25 | 10 | ||
| 1940–41 | 25 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 10 | ||
| 1941–42 | 24 | 18 | 2 | 3 | 26 | 21 | ||
| 1942–43 | 22 | 21 | 2 | 0 | 24 | 21 | ||
| Total | 227 | 143 | 10 | 6 | 237 | 149 | ||
| Torino | 1944 | CAI | 23 | 27 | — | 23 | 27 | |
| Juventus | 1945–46 | Serie A-B | 29 | 16 | — | 29 | 16 | |
| 1946–47 | Serie A | 28 | 10 | — | 28 | 10 | ||
| Total | 57 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 57 | 26 | ||
| Novara | 1947–48 | Serie B | 30 | 16 | — | 30 | 16 | |
| 1948–49 | Serie A | 36 | 15 | — | 36 | 15 | ||
| 1949–50 | 17 | 4 | — | 17 | 4 | |||
| 1950–51 | 37 | 19 | — | 37 | 19 | |||
| 1951–52 | 31 | 18 | — | 31 | 18 | |||
| 1952–53 | 25 | 9 | — | 25 | 9 | |||
| 1953–54 | 9 | 5 | — | 9 | 5 | |||
| Total | 185 | 86 | 0 | 0 | 185 | 86 | ||
| Career total | 619 | 333 | 10 | 6 | 629 | 339 | ||
| National team | Year | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | 1935 | 2 | 2 |
| 1936 | 5 | 2 | |
| 1937 | 5 | 5 | |
| 1938 | 7 | 9 | |
| 1939 | 6 | 8 | |
| 1940 | 4 | 1 | |
| 1941 | – | – | |
| 1942 | 1 | 1 | |
| 1943 | – | – | |
| 1944 | – | – | |
| 1945 | 1 | 1 | |
| 1946 | 1 | 1 | |
| 1947 | 1 | 0 | |
| 1948 | – | – | |
| 1949 | – | – | |
| 1950 | – | – | |
| 1951 | – | – | |
| 1952 | 1 | 0 | |
| Total | 34 | 30 | |
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 24 March 1935 | Praterstadion,Vienna, Austria |  Austria | 1–0 | 2–0 | 1933–35 Central European International Cup | [31] |
| 2 | 2–0 | ||||||
| 3 | 25 October 1936 | San Siro,Milan, Italy |  Switzerland | 2–1 | 4–2 | 1936–38 Central European International Cup | [32] |
| 4 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 5 | 23 May 1937 | Letná Stadium,Prague, Czechoslovakia |  Czechoslovakia | 1–0 | 1–0 | 1936–38 Central European International Cup | [33] |
| 6 | 27 May 1937 | Ullevaal Stadion,Oslo, Norway |  Norway | 2–0 | 3–1 | Friendly | [34] |
| 7 | 3–0 | ||||||
| 8 | 31 October 1937 | Charmilles Stadium,Geneva, Switzerland | Switzerland | 1–0 | 2–2 | 1936–38 Central European International Cup | [35] |
| 9 | 2–2 | ||||||
| 10 | 15 May 1938 | San Siro, Milan, Italy |  Belgium | 4–1 | 6–1 | Friendly | [36] |
| 11 | 5–1 | ||||||
| 12 | 6–1 | ||||||
| 13 | 22 May 1938 | Stadio comunale Luigi Ferraris,Genoa, Italy |  Yugoslavia | 2–0 | 4–0 | Friendly | [37] |
| 14 | 5 June 1938 | Stade Vélodrome,Marseille, France | Norway | 2–1 | 2–1 | 1938 FIFA World Cup | [38] |
| 15 | 12 June 1938 | Stade olympique de Colombes,Colombes, France |  France | 2–1 | 3–1 | 1938 FIFA World Cup | [39] |
| 16 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 17 | 19 June 1938 | Stade olympique de Colombes, Colombes, France |  Hungary | 2–1 | 4–2 | 1938 FIFA World Cup final | [40] |
| 18 | 4–2 | ||||||
| 19 | 26 March 1939 | Stadio Giovanni Berta,Florence, Italy |  Germany | 1–0 | 3–2 | Friendly | [41] |
| 20 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 21 | 13 May 1939 | San Siro, Milan, Italy |  England | 2–1 | 2–2 | Friendly | [42] |
| 22 | 4 June 1939 | BSK Stadion,Belgrade, Yugoslavia | Yugoslavia | 1–0 | 2–1 | Friendly | [43] |
| 23 | 8 June 1939 | Ferencváros Stadion,Budapest, Hungary | Hungary | 1–0 | 3–1 | Friendly | [44] |
| 24 | 20 July 1939 | Helsinki Olympic Stadium,Helsinki, Finland |  Finland | 1–0 | 3–2 | Friendly | [45] |
| 25 | 2–1 | ||||||
| 26 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 27 | 14 April 1940 | Stadio Nazionale PNF,Rome, Italy |  Romania | 2–1 | 2–1 | Friendly | [46] |
| 28 | 19 April 1942 | San Siro, Milan, Italy |  Spain | 3–0 | 4–0 | Friendly | [47] |
| 29 | 11 November 1945 | Letzigrund,Zürich, Switzerland | Switzerland | 1–0 | 4–4 | Friendly | [48] |
| 30 | 1 December 1946 | San Siro, Milan, Italy | Austria | 3–1 | 3–2 | Friendly | [49] |
Lazio[50]
Juventus[50]
Novara[50]
Individual
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Serie ATop Scorer 1942–43 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Italy captain 1940–1947 | Succeeded by |
 | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
