Marotta: ‘Inter have an obligation to preserve Mazzola’s memory, a legend’
FLORENCE, ITALY - JANUARY 29: Inter CEO Giuseppe Marotta during the "Panchina d'Oro" award season 2022/2023 at Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano on January 29, 2024 in Florence, Italy. (Photo by Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images)
Giuseppe Marotta says Inter carry a responsibility to keep Sandro Mazzola’s legacy alive, describing the former captain as an icon whose example should be passed to the club’s youngest players.
With quotes courtesy of FCInterNews, the Inter president was speaking to Sportmediaset the day after Mazzola’s death at the age of 83.
“A legend of Inter has left us. He wore one shirt only, he wore this shirt for 17 consecutive seasons, so an entire life dedicated to the club,” Marotta said.
“He helped write some truly extraordinary pages of that Inter, of the great sides of Helenio Herrera and Angelo Moratti. Today, as a club, we have an obligation to preserve the memory of this icon, because within that memory are many values that we must necessarily transmit through his example to the new generation and to all our boys in the youth sector.”
Inter president Marotta on Mazzola the player and the executive
Asked for a personal memory, the president offered two, separated by several decades.
“There can be two memories, because he also worked as an executive. As a player, I was small, but I remember the second European Cup win at San Siro, when I watched the victory against Benfica from the stands. And the second one as a colleague, when he was general manager of Euro Venezia, I negotiated with him for a talent who could have gone on to do even better, but who was already a great player – Alvaro Recoba.”
Mazzola made 565 appearances for Inter across 17 seasons, scoring 158 goals and winning four Serie A titles and two European Cups without ever playing for another club. The son of Grande Torino captain Valentino Mazzola, who died in the Superga air disaster when Sandro was six, he made his Serie A debut as a teenager in 1961 and scored twice in the 3-1 European Cup final win over Real Madrid in 1964.
He went on to earn 70 caps for Italy, winning Euro 1968 and reaching the 1970 World Cup final, and later worked as a director and television commentator. His funeral takes place on Monday at Sant’Ambrogio in Milan.
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