Felice Borel

1932/41 Juvents (ITA) 233 games, 139 goals

1941/42 Torino (ITA) 25 games, 7 goals

1942/46 Juventus (ITA) 75 games, 24 goals

1946/47 Alessandria (ITA) 1 game

1948/49 Napoli ( ITA) 1 game

With the National Team:

3 caps, 1 goal

(International Friendlies: 2 caps, 1 goal)

(World Cup: 1 cap)

1st cap: October 22, 1933 against Hungary (1-0)

Last cap: June 1, 1934 against Spain (1-0)

Felice Placido Borel II

Born April 5, 1914 in Nice (FRA)

Died January 21, 1993 in Turin (ITA)

Italian, striker, offensive-midfielder, 1m75

Nickname: "Farfallino"

Felice Borel was born in France, in the city of Nice, on April 5, 1934. His family moved to Piedmont when he was still young and Borel took Italian nationality.

He joined the Turin youth team where he was already one of the great hopes of Italian football. It was the right-hand man of President Agnelli, Mazzonis, who spotted the player and brought him into the first team of the Italian club that crushed the Italian championship.

The young striker made his debut at 18, during a Juventus-Napoli, Juventus defeated, 1-0 on October 2, 1932. But that was not the most important thing, because the player gradually gained momentum. A rapid and growing rise to power.

It was during a Juventus-Lazio Rome match that the player scored his first goal, in the 10th minute of play, on November 20, 1932, before scoring his second goal with Juventus in the 40th minute. From there, the machine was launched.

During the next match, against Torino, he scored the only goal of the match. Against Triestina, he scored a hat-trick the following week. In January, he scored the goal of the 1-1 draw against AC Milan, in Milan. The second half of the season was exceptional, from January to June, he scored 23 goals!

The young player who was 19 at the end of the season, finished top scorer in the Italian championship for his first professional season with 29 goals in the league and 30 over the entire season in all competitions. To give you an idea, the only player of his level among the scorers is Angelo Schiavio with 28 goals in the league, the third best scorer being at 22 goals. The legend Giuseppe Meazza is at 20 goals...

With Felice Borel at the forefront of his attack, Juventus wins the championship again. And will chain another good season. Individually, it will be the best season of Felice Borel's career, who finishes the 1933-34 season with 37 goals in all competitions. In the league, he wins the championship again, but above all, he crushes all the competition.

In the ranking of the best scorers, he peaks at 31 goals in Serie A, that is to say 7 goals more than the second, Giovanni Busoni and 10 goals more than the third... Giuseppe Meazza and his 21 goals. Felice Borel is simply at the top of his game and will logically be selected in the Italian national team that will win the 1934 World Cup, he is World Champion at 20 years old and double top scorer in the Italian championship.

But this will also sound the beginning of the decline, the player with the slender physique, nicknamed "butterfly" because of an elegant run, similar to a dance, will experience his first injuries. Despite his injuries, Felice Borel is one of those players who returns directly to a very high level, which allows him to finish the 1934-35 season as Juventus' top scorer with 20 goals in all competitions including 13 in the league (finishing 5th top scorer in Serie A). Juventus wins the championship again, for the 5th consecutive time and the 3rd time with Borel.

But the injuries will accumulate, because of this, the team will lose level, with an aging squad and only finishes in 5th place in the championship. Felice Borel only plays 8 small matches, for 5 goals, enough to finish 3rd best scorer of a team in decline.

Felice Borel will drag the injuries throughout his career, and during his returns for Juventus, he will oscillate between attacker and midfielder. But his knees no longer follow... He will always have dazzling actions of genius, on January 2, 1938, he surpassed Federico Munerati and became the best scorer in the history of Juventus (before being surpassed by Giampiero Boniperti, twenty years later).

On May 21, 1944, Felice Borel became the first Juventus player to reach 150 goals for the club (he scored his 150th goal in a derby win 3-1 against Torino). Farfallino also had stints at Torino, Alessandria and Napoli, where he retired at the age of 35. In total, he scored 163 goals in 308 games for Juventus. But his prime was much stronger, during the 1932/33 and 1933/34 seasons, between the ages of 18 and 20, he scored 67 goals in 72 games in all competitions. One of the best young players that football has ever known.

- Top scorer in the Italian championship in 1933 (29 goals) and 1934 (31 goals) (Juventus)

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