Giuseppe "Bepi" Moro (; 16 January 1921 – 28 January 1974) was an Italian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

. An eccentric and athletic player, who was also an excellent shot-stopper, he is regarded as one of Italy's most spectacular keepers of all time; he was also known for his

penalty Penalty or The Penalty may refer to: Sports * Penalty (golf) * Penalty (gridiron football) * Penalty (ice hockey) * Penalty (rugby) * Penalty (rugby union) * Penalty kick (association football) * Penalty shoot-out (association football) A p ...

–stopping abilities: with 16 saves in 270 appearances between 1947 and 1955, he has stopped the fifth–highest number of penalties in Serie A, alongside

Gianluigi Buffon Gianluigi Buffon (; born 28 January 1978) is an Italian professional footballer who captains and plays as a goalkeeper for the club Parma. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. He is one of the few recorded pl ...

Club career

In eight season in

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

, Giuseppe Moro defended the goal of six different teams:

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fol ...

, Bari,

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

, Lucchese,

Sampdoria Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, ...

and Roma.

International career

Moro made his debut with the Italy national team in 1949, producing some notable saves against

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. During his second appearance, in a classic

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

–

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

match played in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, he showcased his best-known block:

Stan Mortensen Stanley Harding Mortensen (26 May 1921 – 22 May 1991) was an English professional footballer, most famous for his part in the 1953 FA Cup Final (subsequently known as the "Matthews Final"), in which he became the only player ever to score a ha ...

tried to get past Moro with a powerful and accurate shot which the Italian goalkeeper brilliantly denied. Moro kept a clean sheet for 75 minutes, before giving up goals to

Jack Rowley John Frederick Rowley (7 October 1918 – 28 June 1998) was an English footballer who played as a forward from the 1930s to the 1950s, mainly remembered for a 17-year spell with Manchester United. He was nicknamed "The Gunner" because of his pr ...

and Billy Wright, which did not diminish his outstanding performance. He also appeared with Italy in the

1950 World Cup The 1950 FIFA World Cup was the fourth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams and held in Brazil from 24 June to 16 July 1950. The planned 1942 and 1946 World Cups were ...

in a win against

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

, replacing the first-choice goalkeeper

Lucidio Sentimenti Lucidio Sentimenti (; 1 July 1920 – 28 November 2014), also known as Sentimenti IV, was an Italian footballer from Bomporto in the Province of Modena, who played as a goalkeeper. His nickname, Sentimenti IV, comes from the fact that he is the fo ...

, who had played the two previous matches.

References

External links

* * 1921 births 1974 deaths Italian men's footballers Men's association football goalkeepers AS Roma players UC Sampdoria players ACF Fiorentina players Treviso FBC 1993 players US Alessandria Calcio 1912 players SSC Bari players Torino FC players Lucchese 1905 players Hellas Verona FC players Serie A players Italy men's international footballers 1950 FIFA World Cup players Footballers from Veneto {{Italy-footy-goalkeeper-stub