Calcio: A History of Italian Football. John Foot

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СКАЧАТЬ or even attitude to the game; it is also about the way football is understood. Ever since football began, followers of the game have sorted themselves into those who are interested in good play, and those who want to win at all costs. Journalist Gianni Brera often argued that the perfect football game would end 0–0. This way of reading the game was light years away from many of his colleagues, and anathema to those who watched or played in the English league. Nobody has ever argued in England that the perfect game would end 0–0. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that one of the key defensive tactics introduced in world football first took root in Italy in the 1940s and was later given an Italian name.

      Catenaccio. Football, Italian style

      ‘Catenaccio was not invented by Gianni Brera. If it was part of the Italian character, as is probable, it could not be invented. In the same way as the slums around Rome were not invented by those who put them in neo-realist films. They were already there’

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      Catenaccio! Even today the very word strikes fear into the hearts of football fans all over the world. This Italian word – it is generally thought to mean ‘padlock’² – has come to symbolize all that is bad about football; defensive play, aggressive fouling, cynicism. Nobody knows for sure when the Italian word was used for the first time as a footballing term, but by the 1950s, it was commonplace. Internationally, Italian football first became stigmatized in this way in the 1960s, when Italian clubs had huge success in Europe. This is also a word whose meaning has changed over time – from the description of a tactical system to the simple labels of boring and defensive.

      The history of catenaccio can be divided into three distinct parts. First, there is catenaccio as a specific tactical system, whose history can be traced from Switzerland in the 1930s through to Salerno in the south of Italy in the 1940s and on to Trieste and Padua (in the north) in the same decade before moving to Milan and the two Milanese teams in the 1960s and to Turin and Juventus in the 1970s. Using this interpretation, we can talk about formations, actual players and team-sheets. We might call this real catenaccio (as in ‘real socialism’) or primitive catenaccio.

      A second way of thinking about catenaccio, however, sees it above all as a state of mind, a way-of-being on and off the football field, quite apart from the actual set-up of any one team. The idea that the priority was not to give away goals, and then try and score, is still widespread in the Italian league, especially away from home and in the lower divisions. This mentality can be summed up very simply by this phrase: prima non prenderle: ‘our first priority is a clean sheet’. Very few teams actually play, nowadays, with an out-and-out sweeper or mark man-to-man. So catenaccio-type football is also a way of playing quite separate from 1950s-style tactics in the rigid sense of the word. This much looser definition of what catenaccio is applies to the way most smaller teams play in the Italian championship. They defend in depth, break up the play, and try to score on the break. If all goes well, the game ends 0–0. If all goes incredibly well, they win, scoring early and then using the space that opens up.

      Not all minor teams approach games in this way, and in recent years some have even tried attacking from the start. In the lower divisions, however, nearly all teams play like this all the time, away from home. Just a glance at the goals scored and the number of draws in Serie B tells its own story, despite three points for a win. When American journalist Joe McGinniss followed lowly southern team Castel di Sangro for a season in Serie B, he found that, away from home, they invariably played with just one man up front. Sometimes, they sneaked a win, on other occasions they ground out a 0–0. Most of the time, they lost, and these tactics did not change over the whole season.³ We might call this kind of football ‘defensivist’, the word that Brera preferred to catenaccio. Brera’s defensivism was supported by strange evolutionary theories. The journalist was adamant that Italians were physically inferior to people from other countries, and therefore couldn’t play an all-out aggressive game.

      Finally, catenaccio is also applied to other aspects of the game – to a kind of cynicism which is often seen as particularly Italian: psychological tussles amongst coaches, fouling, play-acting, complaining to the referee, gamesmanship of all kinds, systematic ‘tactical’ fouling. These ‘tactics’ are not part of the official canon, but are nonetheless a crucial part of winning the battle on the pitch, and have come to be seen as part of a catenaccio-type way of playing the game. Italians have a word for everything that surrounds the game off the pitch, before matches begin. They call these aspects of a game ‘pre-tactics’ – team selection, false injuries, rumours about formations. In Italian football, much of the battle is won off the pitch.

      Real catenaccio. From Switzerland to Italy

      Real catenaccio began in Switzerland, in the 1930s, with a coach called Karl Rappan. The original idea was a simple one: add a defender and take away an attacker. His system became known as verrou – padlock – which in Italian became catenaccio. Since most teams played with three centre-forwards at that time, and used man-to-man marking, once a striker had beaten the defence, he was usually clean through on goal. Rappan decided to try to put a stop to this. He removed a forward, and added a defender, who played behind the existing backs and did not have someone specific to mark. This was revolutionary. For the first time, a defender was asked to mark space, and not a particular player. This defender would ‘sweep up’ behind the others – hence the name given to this defender, sweeper or, in Italian, libero (the free one).

      Catenaccio ‘overturned the traditional dualism between the marker and the marked, and gave teams a strong defensive pattern’.⁴ If someone beat the centre-backs, they had the sweeper to deal with, who would often simply clear the ball. Sweepers had to be strong but clean in the tackle (as they were often in the area, a foul would mean a penalty), intelligent (they had to predict what would happen next) and, although this was not essential, be good long passers of the ball. Rappan’s new model brought immediate success, especially at the 1938 World Cup where Switzerland beat both Germany and Austria.

      Real catenaccio in Italy. Gipo Viani and beyond

      In Italy the first sweeper was crafted by Gipo Viani, one of the game’s great characters. Viani tried his hand at everything football had to offer: he was a player, trainer, manager and administrator at a number of clubs. After World War Two he took charge of Salernitana. A small club, Salernitana could not compete with the Juventuses and Milans of this world. Thus, they decided to defend a bit more. Like Rappan, Viani asked one of his attackers to track back in defence, marking the opposition’s number nine.⁵ This freed up one of his central defenders to act as sweeper. That was it. Put so simply, this doesn’t appear to be a revolution, but it was. The extra man in defence seemed to make a difference, frustrating the opposition and bringing them further forward, and freeing space for rapid counter-attacking on the break.

      It was typical of Viani that he should invent a poetic story to explain the genesis of catenaccio. Sitting on the dock of the bay in Salerno, after yet another sleepless night worrying about Salernitana’s failures on the pitch, Viani allegedly observed the fishing fleet at work. He noticed that a reserve net was used as a back-up for the main series of nets. This, he later claimed, gave him the idea for the sweeper. It is a nice story, but almost certainly untrue.

      Salernitana’s tactical innovation provoked much comment. Viani was so personally identified with the new system that it was given his name – Vianema. Salernitana, however, were much less successful than СКАЧАТЬ