Gianpiero Combi (; 20 November 1902 – 12 August 1956) was an Italian footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He spent his entire club career at Juventus, where he won five Italian League titles. At international level, he won the 1934 World Cup with the Italy national team, as well as two Central European International Cups (in 1930 and 1935), and an Olympic bronze medal in 1928.
Combi was considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world during the 1930s, alongside Ricardo Zamora and František Plánička, and is regarded as one of Italy's best ever goalkeepers; in a 1999 IFFHS poll, he was elected Italy's second best goalkeeper of the twentieth century, behind only Dino Zoff, and the sixteenth greatest European goalkeeper of the century, alongside Rinat Dasayev.
Club career
Combi was born in Turin on 20 November 1902 and played for Juventus' youth side; he debuted in the Italian Serie A on 5 February 1922 in a match against Milan. Combi spent his entire club career with Juventus FC; he played 351 games in Serie A, winning five titles – in 1926 (having conceded only 18 goals during the season), 1931, 1932, 1933 and 1934 as part of the first golden age of the club with a record of five championship victories in a row, a feat known as Il Quinquennio d'Oro (The Golden Quinquennium).
thumb|left|[[Virginio Rosetta, Combi and Umberto Caligaris with Juventus in the early 1930s]]
Along with Virginio Rosetta and Umberto Caligaris, Combi formed a formidable defensive wall (known in Italy as the Trio Combi-Rosetta-Caligaris) for both Juventus and the Italy national team. He played his last match in Serie A on 15 April 1934, in a 2–1 win over Brescia. In total Combi played for 13 seasons with Juventus, totaling 348 Serie A matches and another 16 games in the Central European Cup, to claim the record for most appearances by a goalkeeper for the club (370), a record he held for more than 40 years until Dino Zoff overtook him in the 1970s (476 matches), followed by Stefano Tacconi in the 1980s (377 matches), and subsequently Gianluigi Buffon.
International career
Combi's first match for the Italy national team was in Budapest, at the age of 21, on 6 April 1924 in a 7–1 loss against Hungary. After this match Combi never looked back and for the next ten years it was extremely rare to see another goalkeeper defending the Italian posts.
The 1928 Olympic Games were held in Amsterdam and this time Combi formed part of the squad and defended the Italian squad for the rest of the tournament: Quarter Final against Spain 1–1 after extra time, quarter-final replay against Spain 7–1, a predecessor cup of the European Nations Cup held between the National teams of Central Europe. In these matches Italy lost against Matěj Šindelář's Austria 3–0 in Vienna but won all the others, against Switzerland 3–2 in Zürich,
End of career and retirement
A year later, in November 1935, Combi played only five of the eight matches in the International Cup and in his absence the Italian team won the trophy. He totalled 47 caps He is regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time.
Records
- Combi is the first goalkeeper to win four Italian Championships in a row.
- He played the 9th most games for Juventus in the Italian League, and the 24th most in all competitions; he is the goalkeeper with the fourth-most appearances for Juventus (370), behind Stefano Tacconi, Dino Zoff, and Gianluigi Buffon. during the 1925–26 season, which was a record in the Italian Football Championship, until it was bettered by Gianluigi Buffon, who went unbeaten for 974 minutes during the 2015–16 Serie A season.
Honours
Club
Juventus
Trivia
- Gianpiero Combi, Dino Zoff (1982), Iker Casillas (2010) and Hugo Lloris (2018), are the only goalkeepers to have won the FIFA World Cup as captain of their national teams.
- Combi, alongside František Plánička, was one of the only two goalkeepers-captains at the same World Cup final.
- He was also known in Italy as Uomo di Gomma (the Rubber Man) due to his agility and his carefree but secure saves.