Giuseppe Furino, one of the most successful players ever, the holder of the most illustrious haul of trophies of any player in Italy, a true winner with capital W.
Furino wasn’t the one of the sexiest players in front of media, after all he played as defensive midfielder, he wasn’t specially talented with the ball and he wasn’t mentionably handsome. His playing style certainly didn’t offer such elegance or mastery visible to the larger audience, unlike many of his team mates. His talents were lying some where else than in technical department, the most vicious could even claim that they didn’t exist, at least not on the football pitch.
Born after war in Palermo at the summer of 1946, Furino already started to play for Juve’s junior teams as kid. Despite his start with Juve, his professional career started for Savona, a small town near Genova in the coast of the Mediterranean. He played there in the minor leagues for two seasons, and then became the time for his big break, the debut in Serie A. This, however, required moving to Napoli. A season with the southerners was an immense success, a start on the journey home. In the summer of ’69, Giuseppe travelled back home North to play for the Italian royals.
With Juventus, Furino showed that he might be a minor by his looks (he was only 169 centimetres tall), but on the field he was a real giant of a man. The little boy had grown in to a major player, and in his debut season with Juve he played all of the games throughout the season, a feat he repeated most years until his retirement from football.
How on Earth could such an unskilful boy do such things? Furino had one unbeatable talent for anyone, he had been blessed by guts that would be enough even for a whole village. His determination and willpower just needed to be harnessed properly, and luckily Juve’s coaches understood Beppe’s function ability as an anchor of the midfield. His tactical understanding of the beautiful game and his unselfishness were irreplaceable help for Juventus that were already full of brilliant attacking minded players, and naturally someone had to make space for Scirea’s famous advances from the back. Furino’s unyieldingness on the pitch made him an important part of the team.
Quite naturally the fans of other teams literally hated Furino. After all he often played hard and never give up even an inch. Furino certainly made life difficult for the players that dared to ambush his territory. In particular, his clashes with Gianni Rivera are still remembered. His nickname that grew from his playing style probably tells it all. “Furia” (which literally means fury in English). The fact that he carried captain’s armband between the the years of 1976-82 says much of his enormous will power. He was the captain of Juve that were already full of natural born leaders, all the way from Zoff and Scirea to Cabrini, Tardelli and many others. Along with their charismatic captain Juve won a game, and after that could instantly concentrate to their next target, winning even more. He’s probably the best symbol for the culture of winning, the purest and finest example of
spirito Juve that you have to respect, all though very much against their will by other teams’ fans.
Furino proved along his long career (15 seasons with Juve) that a footballer can became exceptionally successful even if he didn’t have the most special talents with the ball. I don’t think that nowadays for example guys like Tacchinardi or Roy Keane protest that claim. After his glorious career Furino quite naturally decided to carry on at a club he loves, this time as a scout. The word on the street is that even as scout Furino preferred more hard-working, modest players that were crucial for the sake of team spirit rather than often egoistic, virtuosic ball-lovers.
Outside Juve, Italy and pretty much the rest of the world dismissed Furino as too limited a player technically, so he wore the blue shirt of the Azzurri only three times, one of which was in the World Cup of 1970. On the other hand, who really cares? Furino still has a nice bunch of achievements to comfort himself. When he finally ended his career in the summer of 1984, he had won pretty much everything. The record of 8 scudetti, 2 Coppa Italia in the domestic competitions and the trophies of Uefa Cup and Cup winners Cup brought from Europe and the trophy of world team championships pretty much sums it up. Not to forget that he remains the second most capped player for Juve with his 528 official matches (which is only 24 less than Scirea’s record!) Not a bad for a “limited and talentless” guy.