La Grande Inter: Carlo Tagnin (1932-2000)La Grande Inter: Carlo Tagnin (1932-2000)

Surely, none of us have forgotten the amazing Inter team that gave us so much joy in 2010. La Triplete was something unique and for a little while Inter found themselves at the top of the Italian and the international football. We all remember people like Samuel Eto’o, Wesley Sneijder, Javier Zanetti, Diego Milito, José Mourinho or any of the other heroes who gave us so much joy and pride. But how many of us remember and know about people like Sandro Mazzola, Luis Suárez, Giacinto Facchetti, Mario Corso, Helenio Herrera and the other heroes known as La Grande Inter? Since many of us were not born at the time, it is natural that we do not have any personal memories of this great team but that does not mean that we can not know how Inter in the 1960′s dominated world football. During the upcoming weeks I will be presenting the people who contributed to so many wins and who wrote so many pages in Inter’s history, people who, together were called La Grande Inter.

This week I present a player who is not as famous as his teammates, but still deserves to be honored because his hard work in midfield gave offensive players as Luis Suárez and Mario Corso space and freedom to play their game without having to worry about the defensive work. On November 18, 2012, he would have turned 80 years old: Carlo Tagnin.

Carlo Tagnin was born November 18, 1932 in Alessandria, a city that is located in the Turin-Milan-Genoa triangle. The defensive midfielder Tagnin joined Inter as a 30-year-old during the 1962/63 season after having spent the 1950s in Alessandria, Torino, Monza, Lazio and Bari. While in Bari, he was accused of having been involved in a gambling scandal and was banned for two and a half years. The punishment was later reduced by a year and when the punishment was served, he was recruited to the team where he would reach his career highlight. Helenio Herrera used the indefatigable Tagnin as a defensive midfielder with the main task to mark the opponents’ key midfielder and thus cover up for Suárez and Corso. His most memorable contribution was in the final of the European Cup in 1964 which was played at Wiener Prater Stadium in Vienna, where he totally shut down Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano and helped Inter to the title. Tagnin, who, during his last season at Inter was replaced by the younger Bedin, left Inter after the team won its second straight victory in the European Cup to finish his career in his hometown team: Alessandria in Serie B.

At the beginning of the 1970s Tagnin started a coaching career during which he coached Albese, Savona, Inter’s youth and finally Alessandria.

On 13 March 2000, Carlo Tagnin died of osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. Ferruccio Mazzola who played one match for Inter in 1967, suggested in a 2004 interview and in the book Il Terzo Incomodo that Tagnins death was related to the use of performance-enhancing drugs in football during the 1960s and 1970s. Ferruccio’s information has never been confirmed nor proven and his statements made his brother, the Inter legend Sandro Mazzola, end his relation with his younger brother. Giacinto Faccetti who was the president of Inter at the time of the allegations and players when the doping allegedly happend, sued Mazzola for defamation. The court could not find that the contents of Mazzola’s book could be considered defamation and acquitted him.

In his 56 appearances for Inter between 1963 and 1965, Tagnin scored only one goal for Inter. He won two Scudetti, two European Cups and one Coppa Intercontinentale with La Grande Inter.