The 1930s: A Unified National Championship
The club played in the first organised Serie A in 1929 and made their league debut on 6 October 1929, defeating Bologna 3-0 at the Rondinella ground on Via Flaminia. However, the inaugural championship was less than brilliant for Lazio, who on the final day managing a meagre 15th placed finish.
Lazio also had a considerable Brazilian influence in their early Serie A years, known as Brasilazio. Their coach of the day, Amílcar Barbuy, was the first Brazilian to become involved with Italian football. However, this did not bring them success, as they finished 8th in 1930-31 and 13th in 1931-32.
In the summer of 1932, Barbuy was replaced by an Austrian coach, Karl Stürmer, and he led the club to their first eve win in a Rome Derby, beating the giallorossi 2-1 at home. Two straight tenth placed finishes under Stürmer, saw him replaced by a compatriot, Walter Alt, in 1934. His arrival also coincided with those of two star players of the day, Silvio Piola and Attilio Ferraris IV. Ferraris had arrived from Roma, where he had played over 200 games, while Piola went on to become a legend of Lazio, the highest goalscorer in Serie A history and, in 1938, he also became a World Cup winner with the national team.
Led by the legendary striker Piola, Lazio achieved a second place finish in 1937, their highest pre-war result. The coach that season was Hungarian József Viola. They also competed in European competition for the first time, losing in the final of the Central European Cup against Ferencváros.
Lazio rounded out the decade with a memorable away derby win by 2-0 at the Campo Testaccio in 1939 and a credible 4th-placed finish in 1940.
Read more about this topic: History Of S.S. Lazio
Famous quotes containing the words unified and/or national:
“The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate mass begins to stir. It becomes potent, and when it strikes,... it strikes with incredible emphasis. Those are the rare occasions when a national will emerges from the scattered, specialized, or indifferent blocs of voters who ordinarily elect the politicians. Those are for good or evil the great occasions in a nation’s history.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)