There has been a long and rich history of oriundi in Italian football as you said. Mussolini’s regime had quite a conflicted policy when it came to the South Americans you mentioned.

They were all too happy to reap the benefits of these Argentines and Uruguayans and emphasised their Italian backgrounds. On the other hand, the oriundi were not presented with the same medal of merit that was bestowed upon the native Italians after the 1934 victory.

John Foot examined the history of the South Americans in the exceptional ‘Calcio – a history of Italian football’. If you haven’t read it yet, I’d strongly recommend it.

A note about the presence of the ‘oriundi’; this simply heralds a return to an old Italian practice, one which arguably brought the azzurri the 1934 and 38 World Cups, when they siphoned off the cream of Italo-Argentines and Uruguayans such as Monti, Guaita, Faccio and Andreolo and took them back to the motherland.