Sergio Savaro Giovanni Lanfranchi (

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second mos ...

, 27 September 1925 – Barjols, 22 January 2000) was an Italian

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

player and coach, active in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

for most of his career as flanker, number 8 and lock. He won two national championship titles, one in Italy for Parma and one in France for

FC Grenoble The Football Club de Grenoble Rugby (FCG) is a French rugby union club based in Grenoble and founded in 1892. FCG was champion of France in 1954 and runner-up in 1918 and in 1993 during a controversial final, being deprived of the title of cham ...

and, in 2016, the second longest international career for

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

(between 1949 and 1964), after

Mauro Bergamasco Mauro Bergamasco (born 1 May 1979) is a former Italian rugby union footballer who last played for Zebre. He predominantly played as an open-side flanker, although his versatility means that he had also played a number of international games on the ...

. Two sports facilities in his hometown,

are named after him.

Biography

Orphaned of both parents, after school he was a combatant in

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

for the

Italian Resistance The Italian resistance movement (the ''Resistenza italiana'' and ''la Resistenza'') is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Socia ...

and, returning to Parma after the war, he started to work and play rugby union for the local team in 1946. With

, he collected 101 caps and won the title of Italian champion in 1950. After winning the

scudetto The ''scudetto'' ( Italian for: "little shield") is a decoration having the colors of the flag of Italy which is sewn onto the jersey of the Italian sports clubs that won the highest level championship of their respective sport in the previous se ...

, he moved to

and established himself in

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

, becoming part of the local team which never had won a championship. Having learned to play in all the forward positions and, sometimes as fly-half and centre, he was between the most important players who led Grenoble to the 1953-54 French Rugby Union Championship played in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. The city is on t ...

against Cognac, thanks to a try scored by Lanfranchi 20 minutes before the end of the match. His international career covered 15 years, from 27 March 1949; when he debuted in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fran ...

against

, until 29 March 1964 in

, also against France, with an average of 21 matches, most of them against France, who were unbeaten. He played for

until he was 38 years old and for

until he was 40, when he moved to Montceau-les-Mines as player-coach, alternating his career at Montchanin; it is not clear if his career ended in 1971 at age 46 or in 1973 at age 48 due to discordant sources, however, it was in Montchanin that he definitively established; in 1978 he had a brief experience in Italy as coach for

L'Aquila Rugby L'Aquila Rugby 1936 was an Italian rugby union club based in L'Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo. The official colours of the club were black and green, the colours of the city of L'Aquila. The club went into liquidation and disbanded in 2018. His ...

, which soon terminated due to a lack of synchrony with the rugby environment of his home country. Lafranchi died in Barjols, in the Var, on 22 January 2000, at 74 years. In his honour, the municipal stadium in Parma located at Via Piacenza was named after him. The stadium was demolished in 2008 to be replaced by the new Stadio 25 Aprile in Moletolo, which was also named after him by the

city hall in 2015; the stadium is the home field of

Zebre Zebre Parma (, meaning " Zebras") are an Italian professional rugby union team competing in the United Rugby Championship and EPCR competitions from the 2012–13 season. They are based in Parma ( Emilia-Romagna), Italy. They are operated b ...

Pro14 The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...

References

External links

Sergio Lanfranchi international stats
at ESPN Scrum {{DEFAULTSORT:Lanfranchi, Sergio 1925 births 2000 deaths Italy international rugby union players Rugby union locks Rugby union number eights Rugby union flankers Rugby union coaches Italian expatriate sportspeople in France Sportspeople from Parma Italian rugby union players FC Grenoble Rugby players