During the matches it happened that Grande Torino seemed to fall asleep, probably because everyone felt too strong compared to the opponents. In those moments when also the public whistled them, one of them, Oreste Bolmida, railway master of Porta Nuova, understood that he had come to play the charge and then with his trumpet he started playing. At that moment, Valentino Mazzola on the field of play adjusted his hair and rolled up the sleeves of the grenade jersey and gave the quarter of an hour grenade, in which the team became irresistible for the opponents. Like the one at the Stadio Nazionale against Roma who set the result at 0-7, six goals in 14 minutes. In Turin, at home stadium, Philadelphia, it was like this. Mazzola and his team-mates rested in the first half and then, in the second half of the match, the captain pulled up the sleeves of his uniform and the Toro became overwhelming.
Giovanni Arpino, many years later, in 1972, used the word tremendismo to explain this approach to the game:
“But what is the “tremendousness”, so much mentioned this year about the grenade? Paraphrasing Petrolini, you could say: <<Tremendism is that thing / that burns in stadiums and squares / the girls like so much / because it’s red and never goes down … >> … It can indicate even a quarter of an hour, in a match, but in that quarter of an hour it unloads all its driving force”[1].
Tremendismo is the one shown by Ferguson’s Manchester United:
“If I had to sum up what it means to be the coach of Manchester United, I’d say that you have to watch the last 15 minutes: sometimes it’s quite mysterious, it seems that the ball is sucked into the net. Often the players seem to know that it was going to happen, that they were going to score; it didn’t always happen, but the team never stopped believing it. It was a very good quality, this one. I always took the risk. My plan was: don’t worry and don’t lose patience until the last quarter of an hour, then attack with your head down”[2] .
[1]“Torino ‘72” [editoria – 40], edito a supplemento della rivista “Piemonte sport e club” nel 1972, a cura di Giorgio Gandolfi e Bruno Perucca. https://toro.myblog.it/2009/04/19/il-tremendismo/
[2] Alex Ferguson (2014). La mia vita. Milano Bompiani, p.58.
