Ardico Magnini (; 21 October 1928 – 3 July 2020) was an Italian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a defender.

Club career

Along with Sergio Cervato, Magnini formed the defensive partnership of

Fulvio Bernardini Fulvio Bernardini (; 28 December 1905 – 13 January 1984) was an Italian football player and coach who played as a midfielder. He is regarded as one of Italy's greatest ever footballers and managers. Club career During his playing career, Ber ...

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Florence, Tuscany. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while ...

back-line. After winning the championship with the club in

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan after 57 years. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, E ...

, he played another two seasons in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

before going to

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

, and finished his career at

Prato Prato ( ; ) is a city and municipality (''comune'') in Tuscany, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Prato. The city lies in the northeast of Tuscany, at an elevation of , at the foot of Monte Retaia (the last peak in the Calvana ch ...

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had b ...

International career

After

Giampiero Boniperti Giampiero Boniperti (; 4 July 1928 – 17 June 2021) was an Italian association football, footballer who played his List of one-club men in association football, entire 15-season career at Juventus FC, Juventus between 1946 and 1961, winning five ...

, Ardico Magnini, along with club team mates Cervato, Egisto Pandolfini and Armando Segato, is one of five 'Azzurri' with the most caps for the

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

during the difficult rebuilding years of the fifties, following the

Superga air disaster The Superga air disaster (, "Tragedy of Superga") occurred on 4 May 1949, when a Fiat G.212 of Avio Linee Italiane (Italian Airlines), carrying the entire Torino F.C., Torino association football, football team (popularly known as the ''Grande ...

in 1949. He made two appearances at the 1954 World Cup with Italy, and 20 in total between 1953 and 1957.

Honours

;

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

Winners: 1955–56; Runner-up: 1956–57, 1957–58 *

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

Runner-up: 1956–57 ;Individual *

Serie A Team of The Year The AIC Serie A Team of the Year (in Italian: ''Squadra dell’anno AIC'') is an annual award given to a set of eleven footballers in the top tier of Football in Italy, Italian football, the Serie A, who are considered to have performed the best d ...

: 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956

References

La Gazzetta dello Sport
1928 births 2020 deaths Italian men's footballers Men's association football defenders FC Pistoiese SSD players ACF Fiorentina players Genoa CFC players AC Prato players Serie A players Serie B players Italy men's international footballers 1954 FIFA World Cup players Sportspeople from Pistoia Footballers from the Province of Pistoia 20th-century Italian sportsmen {{Italy-footy-defender-1920s-stub