Inter Milan legend Sandro Mazzola passes away at 83

Former Inter Milan and Italy forward Sandro Mazzola has died at the age of 83. The club shared the news on Saturday. Mazzola was a key figure during Inter's golden years.

Inter said in a statement, “Sandro Mazzola was one of the greatest footballers in history. Not only in the history of the Nerazzurri.”

Mazzola played for Inter when they were the top team in Italian football in the mid-1960s. He helped the team win four Serie A titles and back-to-back European Cups in 1964 and 1965.

He scored 158 goals in 565 matches for Inter. One of his standout moments came in the 1964 European Cup final when he scored twice in a 3-1 win against Real Madrid.

After that match, Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas praised Mazzola. Puskas gave him his shirt and said, “I played against your father. You are worthy of him.” Mazzola’s father, Valentino Mazzola, was a Torino star who died in the 1949 Superga air disaster. This tragedy killed 31 people, including 18 players and eight Italian internationals from the team known as the “Grande Torino.”

Mazzola also made 70 appearances for Italy, scoring 22 goals. He won the 1968 European Championship when Italy defeated Yugoslavia 2-0 in a replay held in Rome.

He played in the 1970 World Cup final in Mexico, where Italy lost 4-1 to Pele’s famous Brazil team. The next year, he came second to Johan Cruyff for the Ballon d’Or.

After playing for 17 years, Mazzola retired in 1977. He then took an executive role at Inter and later became the sporting director at Torino.

Inter president Giuseppe Marotta commented on Mazzola's passing. He said, “Today, another piece of the Nerazzurri legend leaves us. Sandro was Inter: he joined the club as a boy and chose to stay here forever, one shirt, seventeen seasons, an entire lifetime.”

Marotta added, “With (Helenio) Herrera’s Grande Inter, he wrote chapters that nobody will ever erase. Today, it is our duty to preserve his memory, because a club is only as great as its memory. And Sandro’s memory will remain with us, forever.”