La muerte de los futbolistas del Torino en lo que se conocería como la tragedia de Superga, ocurrida el 4 de mayo de 1949, representó el primer gran duelo colectivo en la Italia posterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En un momento de gran tensión social entre la Democracia Cristiana y el Frente Popular, el funeral de estos deportistas pareció unir al país en un gran duelo desprovisto de color político. Partiendo de la reseña de prensa completa encontrada en los archivos del Comité Olímpico Nacional Italiano y apoyándose en fuentes de archivo inéditas, este artículo pretende analizar cómo los medios de comunicación de la época narraron este acontecimiento y cómo los jugadores fallecidos se convirtieron en héroes de la recién nacida Italia republicana.
The death of the Torino footballers in what would come to be known as the Superga tragedy, which occurred on 4 May 1949, represented the first great collective mourning in post-World War II Italy. At a time of great social tension between the Christian Democrats and the Popular Front, the funeral of these athletes seemed to unite the country in one great grief devoid of political orientation. Starting from the complete press review found in the archives of the Italian National Olympic Committee and relying on unpublished archive sources, this article aims to analyse how the media of the time narrated this event and how the deceased players became heroes of the newly-born republican Italy. This paper will analyse the way in which the military hero from the years of Fascism passed to the civil hero after the Second World War, highlighting narrative discontinuities and continuities with the previous period. Lastly, it will be shown how the church and the Christian Democrat government sought to re-appropriate the cult of the dead, which between the two wars had represented one of the cornerstones of the civil Fascist religion.