MILAN – The idea of a striker ripping through the net with a potent shot might seem comical – or comic-book – nowadays, but there was once an age of heavy leather balls and less-resistant netting when it used to happen. Not that it was commonplace by any means, but there was a player, Virgilio Felice Levratto, who earned legendary status – and the nickname 'Net-breaker' – by tearing no fewer than seven nets during his career.
Born in 1904 in Carcare near Savona in Liguria, Levratto would go on to play for two of the biggest clubs of the day: Genoa and Ambrosiana-Inter, as the Nerazzurri were known at the time.
Virgilio Felice started out at Vado, however. Having moved to this town in Liguria with his family, he joined the academy of his local club at the age of 14 despite the reservations of his father, a cobbler, about whether his son could make a living from the game. It wasn't long before Levratto convinced him otherwise.
Having been promoted to the senior team, he played in the first-ever Coppa Italia final, between Vado and Udinese, in 1922.
The match was still goalless after 90 minutes and went to extra time, with no time limit set. The stalemate continued and it seemed that only the arrival of dusk could end the game. But then, in the 118th minute, the ball broke to the young forward and he let fly with a thunderous left-footed effort from the edge of the area.
Seeing the ball rattle the tower behind the goal, the referee went over to investigate and saw that the ball had ripped right through the net.
That day Levratto wrote the first page of a legend that started in the days before video but is still recounted almost a century later.
Italy head coach Vittorio Pozzo went to watch the prodigious talent for himself and subsequently called him up for two Olympics, in 1924 and 1928.
Levratto won a bronze medal in Amsterdam (1928) and a Central European International Cup (1927-30), bowling over onlookers and opponents – some of them literally – along the way.
In a match against Luxembourg at the 1924 Olympics, Levratto was about to pull the trigger when the opposition goalkeeper Etienne Bausch – having already been floored (and injured) by one ferocious left-footed strike from the Italian – opted for safety first and decided to abandon his goal rather than face another one of his shots.
After a season at Verona, and with suitors now lining up for his services, Levratto chose Genoa over Juventus, partly so that he could remain closer to home.
He became one of Genoa's most prolific scorers of all time, racking up over 80 goals during his time at the club, but was unable to help them win a 10th Scudetto.
As fate would have it, he missed out on the 1930 title to Ambrosiana despite scoring two in the title-decider in Milan: a Giuseppe Meazza hat-trick ensured it finished 3-3 and the Nerazzurri remained two points ahead of their rivals with two games left to play.
Together they formed a lethal partnership for two seasons, from 1932 to 1934, plundering 39 goals between them in their first year – almost half of the team's total.
However, despite notching 27 goals in 67 games, Levratto didn't manage to win the title with Inter either. Whether it was due to bad luck or bad timing, he would become known as the best Italian player never to win the Scudetto.
He did succeed in winning the title – many years after hanging up his boots – with Fiorentina, where he worked as Fulvio Bernardini's assistant in their triumphant 1955/56 campaign.
By then his phenomenal left foot had already become the stuff of lore, passed on to each new generation by fathers and grandfathers, although they, like us, had to imagine it in their mind's eye.
Alessandro Bai
