Renato Gandolfi (17 November 1927 – 30 April 2011) was an Italian professional

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

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

.Il Grande Toro arriva in tivù. Gandolfi: 'Mi salvò il destino'
''

La Repubblica (; English: "the Republic") is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper with an average circulation of 151,309 copies in May 2023. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and l ...

'', 24 settembre 2005, pag.9 - sez. Genova

Club career

He entered the

Torino Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

youth team in 1940,Uno schianto e finì il Grande Torino, Gandolfi ringrazia quella sostituzione
''

La Gazzetta dello Sport (; English: "The Sports Gazette") is an Italian Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper dedicated to coverage of various sports. Founded in 1896, it is the most widely read daily newspaper of any type in Italy (in 2018). History and profile was fou ...

'', 27 December 1998 then was loaned to Carrarese for two seasons, in

Serie C The Serie C (), officially known as Serie C NOW for sponsorship purposes, is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing ...

. Back in Turin, he was part of the ''Grande Torino'' in the 1948–49 season as the reserve goalkeeper: second to Valerio Bacigalupo and held back by a broken

collarbone The clavicle, collarbone, or keybone is a slender, S-shaped long bone approximately long that serves as a strut between the shoulder blade and the sternum (breastbone). There are two clavicles, one on each side of the body. The clavicle is the ...

. He played two games in that season's

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 ...

, playing as a starter on 28 November 1948 against

Triestina Unione Sportiva Triestina Calcio 1918, commonly referred to US Triestina or just Triestina, is an Italian football club based in Trieste, in the northern Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Originally established in 1918, Triestina was one of the fo ...

. During a trip to

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, he was forced to leave his place to

Dino Ballarin Dino Ballarin (23 September 1925 – 4 May 1949) was an Italian footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Club career Ballarin arrived at Torino in 1947, the team in which his brother, Aldo Ballarin, played as a defender. Dino arrived from the ama ...

, the third goalkeeper, under pressure from his brother Aldo: this prevented him from dying in 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 ...

. He remained at Torino with the only other surviving player, Sauro Tomà, the reserve of Giuseppe Moro in the league from 1948 to 1949, and in 1950 was sold to

Legnano Legnano (; or ''Lignàn'') is a town and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Milan, province of Milan, about from central Milan. With 60,259, it is the thirteenth-most populous township in Lombardy. Legnano is located in the ...

, in

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 ...

.Karl Ange Hansen è rientrato in Italia
''

La Stampa (English: "The Press") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin with an average circulation of 87,143 copies in May 2023. Distributed in Italy and other European nations, it is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. Until the late 1970 ...

'', 15 August 1950, pag.4 With Legnano he won promotion to Serie A and provided particularly adept at parrying penalty kicks: in the 1951–52 season he parried five. In 1952 came back down to Serie B with

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 ...

, winning another promotion to Serie A as the reserve of Angelo Franzosi; he debuted with the ''rossoblu'' due to Franzosi's injury, in the heat of a match between Genoa and Legnano of 5 April 1953. In subsequent seasons Genoa loaned him first to Legnano, in Serie A, and then in December 1954,

Lazio Lazio ( , ; ) or Latium ( , ; from Latium, the original Latin name, ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy, administrative regions of Italy. Situated in the Central Italy, central peninsular section of the country, it has 5,714,882 inhabitants an ...

, where he was never used and deployed only in reserves. Finally he returned to Genoa, where he confirmed his reputation as a skilled goalkeeper on penalty kicks, parrying, among others, a penalty in a decisive game for salvation against

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

, in the 1957–58 season. He totalled 118 appearances in

Honours

; Torino *

: 1948–49 ; Genoa *

: 1952–53

Bibliography

References

External links

Gandolfi on enciclopediadelcalcio.itStatistics on Archiviotoro.it
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gandolfi, Renato 1925 births 2011 deaths Italian men's footballers Serie A players Serie B players Carrarese Calcio 1908 players Torino FC players Genoa CFC players AC Legnano players SS Lazio players Piacenza Calcio 1919 players Men's association football goalkeepers Footballers from Turin 20th-century Italian sportsmen