October 6, 1929 was a watershed date for Italian football. Because the first day of the National Division, the forerunner of Serie A, begins. Previously there was a Northern League and a Southern League, with the Scudetto awarded after a play-off between the winners of the two groups. However, the FIGC had already been thinking about merging them into a single championship for a few years. The Viareggio Charter allows the creation of a long tournament, with the most important Italian cities. Obviously, the Mussolini regime had a hand in it.
The original plan envisaged 16 teams, but in reality there will be 18. The previous year Bologna had won, while Lazio and Napoli – who were in eighth place in the Southern Group – played a play-off on 23 June 1929, which had no winners or losers. Triestina is added with a coup de theatre, almost as if to recall the twenty irredentists of a few years earlier.
On the first day Lazio wins, 3-0, over Bologna. Juventus-Napoli ends 3-2, while the first goal is scored by Bajardi in the third minute of Pro Vercelli-Genova. What is surprising, however, is that the first page of La Gazzetta dello Sport of 7 October 1929 does not even have a reference to the day that has just passed. We had to get to the third.