c1950 Nannina Calcio Carlo Parola HC #N/A PSA 4 (Panini Logo)

In 1961-62, the first Panini album “Great Collection Calciatori Stickers” had on its cover Nils Liedholm, wearing his red and black Milan jersey. The refined Swedish mid-fielder had just stopped playing. The image on the cover was not a photograph, but a drawing from an existing picture of the player. A few years later in 1965, Panini replaced on the album cover the image of Nils Liedholm for the image of another player, caught in the very moment of executing a spectacular over-the-head bicycle kick, which was so amazing to see, as the action still is today, which soon became the Panini logo. The player was Juventus defender Carlo Parola and, along with Nils Liedholm, shared the same inclination to sportsmanship and the same elegance and gracefulness in his style of play. Following an already established pattern, the acrobatic image was a drawing from a snapshot, which was taken on January the 15th, 70 years ago.

In Florence, Juventus took on Fiorentina as the most important game in the first day of the 1949-50 second-round championship. In the opinion of the leading reporters who watched the match, it was nothing worth, except for a late penalty kick missed by the young Florentine Sergio Cervato and a majestic performance from Parola. The black-and-white defenders played such a dominant game that he had to be considered in the best shape of his entire career, especially for his noticeable high-quality skills and cool command. He was also full of energy, as testified by his famous flying bicycle kick, “which had the effect of putting an opponent off his stroke, the ball being whipped away from under his nose when he thought he had full control of it”, as Parola himself once described his trademark play. That afternoon, the magnificent kick was captured for eternity by a Florentine photographer named Corrado Banchi. Although it didn’t appear on all of the Panini album covers after 1965, it has always been stamped on the packs and all the children who performed the “Got-got-need” ritual, had to rip up the ubiquitous iconic image first, most likely completely ignoring the identity of the depicted player.

Parola played over 300 games for Juventus between 1939 and 1954, winning two Serie A titles and a Coppa Italia, and served as club captain from 1949 onwards. In the mid-1970s, he returned to his beloved black-and-white colours as a coach, adding one more Scudetto before vacating his post for Giovanni Trapattoni’s 10-year-tenure.