1909 Italian Football Championship

The 1909 Italian Football Championship season was won by Pro Vercelli.

Campionato Federale di Prima Categoria

1909 Pro Vercelli's squad
Season	1908–09
Champions	Pro Vercelli 2nd title
Top goalscorer	Amilcare Pizzi (9)
← 1908 1909–10 →

In this season, as in the previous one, two championships of Prima Categoria were played:

1. Federal Championship, the first tournament where foreign players (if they lived in Italy) were also allowed to play; the winners would be proclaimed Campioni Federali (Federal Champions)
2. Italian Championship, the second tournament where only Italian players were allowed to play; the winners would be proclaimed Campioni Italiani (Italian Champions)

The winner of Federal Championship was Pro Vercelli. They won as a prize Coppa Oberti.

The winner of Italian Championship was Juventus. They won as a prize Coppa Buni.

However, the "spurious international teams" (the clubs composed mostly of foreign players), adversing the autarchical policy of the FIF, decided to withdraw from Italian Championship in order to make the Federal competition the most relevant tournament and to diminish the Italian one. More, Pro Vercelli's victory of the Federal Championship (where Juventus was soon eliminated) with an all-Italian squad transformed the Italian Championship into a meaningless tournament. The dissenters' strategy worked out: the failure of the Italian Championship won by Juventus forced the Federation to later recognized the Federal Champions of Pro Vercelli as "Campioni d'Italia 1909", disavowing the other tournament.

Federal Championship

Qualifications

Liguria

Played on 17 January and 7 February

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Andrea Doria	4-4	Genoa	1-1	3-3

Tie-break

Played on 21 February on neutral ground

Team 1	Score	Team 2
Andrea Doria	1-2	Genoa

Lombardy

Classification

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	US Milanese	2	2	0	0	5	1	+4	4	Qualified for Semi-Finals
2	Milan	2	1	0	1	3	4	−1	2
3	Internazionale	2	0	0	2	2	5	−3	0

Source: Panini

Results

Played on 10, 17 and 24 January

Team 1	Score	Team 2
Milan	3-2	Internazionale
US Milanese	3-1	Milan
Internazionale	0-2	US Milanese

Piedmont

Round 1

Played on 10 and 17 January

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Juventus	3-2	Torino	0-1	3-1

Due to the fact that both teams won a match (aggregate total was not applied), a tie break was needed.

Repetition

Played on 24 January on Juventus ground

Team 1	Score	Team 2
Juventus	0-1	Torino

Torino advanced to Round 2.

Round 2

Played on 7 February and 14 March

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Pro Vercelli	3-1	Torino	2-1	1-0

Veneto

Venezia was the only registered team.

Semifinals

Lombardy-Veneto

Played on 21 February and 28 March

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Venezia	3-18	US Milanese	1-7	2-11

Piedmont-Liguria

Played on 21 and 28 March

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Pro Vercelli	4-3	Genoa	3-2	1-1

Final

Played on 4 and 25 April

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Pro Vercelli	4-2	US Milanese	2-0	2-2

Italian Championship

• 1909 Italian Championship of Football

References and sources

• Almanacco Illustrato del Calcio - La Storia 1898-2004, Panini Edizioni, Modena, September 2005
• Carlo Chiesa, La grande storia del calcio italiano Chapter 2: Juve, scippati due titoli! Inter, l'atroce beffa (1908-1910), pp. 17–32, Guerin Sportivo #5, May 2012.
• Digitalized online archive of Turin newspaper La Stampa.