Today in Serie A: December 13, 1931 – The Birth of the “Cesarini Time”

If you ask any Italian what it means to get something accomplished during “Cesarini Time” (Zona Cesarini), they will surely know the answer, even if they are not a calcio fan.

To get something wrapped during Zona Cesarini means to get it done in the last possible minute, right before a deadline, and often when there are not many chances left. It has become a common saying in modern Italian and, of course, takes its origin from a football field.

The man who gave his name to the Zona is Renato Cesarini, an Argentine-Italian footballer who played in the Belpaese for six years between 1929 and 1935. He was born in Senigallia in the Marche region but moved to Argentina with his family soon after. That’s where he was raised, and where he started to play football as a midfielder or a striker.

In 1929, he joined Juventus and was a key part of the Bianconeri lineup that became known as the Juve del Quinquennio – Juventus’ first winning dynasty that clinched the Scudetto five times in a row between 1930 and 1935.

Now, Cesarini was a very good striker but not a phenomenal one. He would have likely not claimed his place in the history of Serie A, if it wasn’t for his peculiar ability to score…in the last minute!

He did so twice in the space of a few days, and a journalist’s creativity did the rest.

On December 13, 1931, Italy faced Hungary at the legendary Filadelfia Stadium in Turin for an International Cup matchup. Upfront, Vittorio Pozzo’s Azzurri lined up Cesarini. It was common practice back in the days to borrow Argentine players with Italian heritage.

Italy took a double lead thanks to two more Argentine-born players, Julio Libonatti and Raimundo Orsi, but the Hungarians fought back and made it 2-2. Guess who came to the rescue for Italy on 90 minutes?

But Cesarini had happened to score in the last minute even a few days earlier, making it 3-0 for Juventus in a league matchup against Alessandria. That was not a decisive goal, but apparently it was enough to get the trend noticed.

When Roma’s Rodolfo Volk netted a last-gasp goal against Inter a few days after the Azzurri’s game, journalist Eugenio Danese found it appropriate to write that he had scored during “Cesarini Time”. The legend was born.

Cesarini came back to Argentina after five seasons at Juve, during which he scored 46 games out of 128 caps. He might not have been the greatest striker to ever wear a black-and-white jersey but, as the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco once said about him, “When you manage to give your name to a piece of Time, you must have done something good in life.”

Even the Serie A recognized that as, since 2016, the “Cesarini Trophy” is awarded to the player who scored in the latest minute during the previous league season…