History of Italian Soccer

Most fans will tell you that Italian football was born in 1898. This is when the first official games were played. If we dig a little deeper, we learn that soccer appeared in Italy more than a decade before that. Thanks to Edoardo Bosio, the game of soccer can be traced back to 1887.

Bosio was an Italian merchant who worked for a British textile business. This fortuitous position allowed him to live in England and eventually introduce him to the game of soccer. In 1887, he found himself back in his home town of Turin, Italy where the fascination of British football took root with the local British population. He formed a soccer group of British and Italian men who practiced in the winter.

Within two years, a second football group was formed. It was created and populated by many of the city's nobles, and thus it was called "Team of Nobles". In another two years, this pair of teams joined together, creating the International Football Club of Turin. This new group was composed of both nobles and farm workers.

By 1894, Football Club Torinese was created. Other soccer teams were formed in the region, such as the Internazionale Football C1, which was merged with Football Club Torinese by 1900. These early matches were first played in Piazza d'Armi, Valentino and eventually in the Old Stadium. During these years, soccer wasn't just played in Turin, but in the port city of Genova, as well. As a matter of fact, there was a large British population of merchants and sailors who were organizing matches. In early 1899, Italy's first official soccer team was created, the Genoa Cricket and Football Club.

In these early years, most Italian soccer teams either played in independent games or in the Italian Federation of Gymnastics (FNGI). The FNGI organized the annual championships, often in conjunction with a number of other sports, much like the Olympic Games. By 1904, the first Italian Football Championship was organized in Firenze.