Name : Vittorio Pozzo Date of Birth: 12 March 1886 Date of Death: 21 December
1968 Birthplace: Turin, Italy ¡®Old Master¡¯ helped make Italian football
[AFP] |
In a brilliant four year period, Vittorio Pozzo led the Italian national team
to two FIFA World Cups and an Olympic gold medal, establishing himself as one of
the greatest coaching figures in football history. Not only did il Vecchio
Maestro ("the old master") build a side largely considered on par with any in
the first half of the century, he was also a central figure in establishing many
of the traditional characteristics of Italian football -- steely pragmatism
melded with sophisticated precision.
Known as a tactical wizard, Pozzo was also successful leader of men.
Authoritarian but paternalistic and attentive, he demanded that his players pay
any price for an Azzurri victory, even if many of his charges were not Italian.
The Commissario Tecnico and his 1934 team won as hosts with an entire country
(not to mention fascist dictator Benito Mussolini) watching their every move. It
was an iron-willed, if fortunate, performance. However, the extraordinary France
38 team was the true culmination of Pozzo's footballing vision.
A vision takes hold
An unrepentant Anglophile, the adventurous young Pozzo discovered football
while studying in England. After leading the Italian teams to the 1912 and 1924
Olympics in Stockholm and Paris - the latter time winning a bronze medal - Pozzo
was named the first head coach of the Azzurri not to be shackled by the
decision-making of a technical committee in 1929.
At the second FIFA World Cup finals in 1934, the hosts looked well on their
way after uncomplicated victories over Greece (4-0 in qualifying) and the United
States (7-1 in the first round), but a rugged quarter-final battled with Spain
could not be decided after 120 minutes of 1-1 football, and a replay was ordered
for the following day. Four Italian and seven Spanish players were unfit to
play, including Spain's inspirational goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora, and legendary
inside-right Giuseppe Meazza, eventually carried the day with the only goal in
the relatively deadened rematch.
A high-profile semi-final against fellow
tournament favourites Austria in the semi-final was a lacklustre affair. On a
muddy pitch, the only thing separating the two was a dubious 10th-minute strike
from one of the team's many oriundi (South American-born Italian nationals),
Enrico Guaita. Pozzo's playmaking centre-half Luisito Monti - another oriundi,
who actually played for Argentina in the 1930 FIFA World Cup final - was in
fantastic form pre-empting attacks by the aging Wunderteam, led by Pozzo's
friend and rival Hugo Meisl.
In the final, Italy met a dexterous Czech team, who took the lead in the 70th
minute and by all rights should have carried away the trophy. Motivated
brilliantly as ever by Pozzo, the hosts nevertheless managed to triumph almost
through willpower alone as another oriundi, Raimondo Orsi, hit a spectacular,
swerving shot to even the contest in the 81st minute. In extra time, a hobbled
Meazza, all but left alone to drift in and out of the match, picked out Guaita
from the wing. The Roma midfielder slid the ball to Angelo Schiavio, who just
managed to poke in the winner five minutes into the extra period.
Amid the grandiloquent jubilations for Italia, riding atop his players
shoulders, Pozzo was undoubtedly overjoyed as well as relieved. Despite being
given the title Commendatore for greatness in his profession after the event,
Pozzo made it clear that he still had much to do to form the team that he
wanted.
Playing his football
After claiming a historic Olympic gold medal at the 1936 Olympics, Pozzo and
Italy were amongst the shortlist of favourites in 1938, though the team was
almost completely different from the side four years earlier. More refined and
technical, the side now completely revolved around the inside forwards Meazza
(now captain) and Giovanni Ferrari -- the only two players to feature in both
finals. Up front with them Pozzo had inserted the deadly tandem of striker
Silvio Piola and winger Gino Colaussi, who would go on to score five and four
goals respectively in the finals.
Italy's toughest match of the 1938 finals
actually came in the first round against a determined Norway side. Piola managed
an extra time winner, and Pozzo adjusted the team for the daunting second round
match up with France in Paris. As usual, the Maestro made all the right moves
and Piola scored a brace to see off the hosts. In the semi-final, Brazil coach
Ademar Pimenta famously rested his first choice strikeforce of Leonidas and Tim
and paid the price 2-1 to an undeniable Italy.
Lucky four years before in the final, Pozzo's men stole the show from Hungary
in France. They opened the scoring in just the sixth minute with a flowing,
length-of-the-pitch move that culminated in a Colaussi strike. A Pal Titkos
equaliser stemmed the tide, but Italy were mouth-watering. Meazza made goals for
Piola and Colaussi before the half was up, as Hungary's more deliberate style
and outdated tactics were cruelly exposed by the Azzurri.
Gyorgy Sarosi pulled one back for the Eastern Europeans, but Amedeo Biavati's
backheel set up Piola with eight minutes remaining, and Italy's third all-time
leading goal scorer thumped his left-footed blast into the net. Unpopular to the
French fans and Italian expatriates in attendance, Pozzo and his team celebrated
more intimately than four years before. But, the look on Pozzo's face is one of
the complete satisfaction.
The demanding coach and his devoted team had played themselves into the
record books as the first to successfully defend a FIFA World Cup as well as the
first to win it on foreign soil. With war looming on the horizon however, Pozzo
and his men never got the chance to defend their FIFA World Cup run as there
would not be another finals for 12 years.
Pozzo struggled on against social
and political forces as coach of the Azzurri until the summer of 1948 when he
retired at the age of 62. In all, he led the national team to 63 wins, 17 draws
and 15 losses in his 19 year career. The 63 victories and the total number of 95
matches coached in are both Italian national team records.
He resumed his previous career as a football journalist after retiring, but
his standing as a football manager was compromised by what many saw as
capitulation with Mussolini's fascist regime. He eventually faded back to his
beloved Turin and died four days before Christmas in 1968. A popular figure or
not, Pozzo's place in FIFA World Cup history is enshrined with his team.
Tactics
While in England watching Manchester United's centre-half
Charlie Roberts, Pozzo was won over to the idea of a system featuring two backs
and a playmaking centre-half. Inspired by Austria¡¯s Hugo Meisl, Pozzo developed
his own tactics, known as the Metodo. Pozzo¡¯s teams typically relied less on the
centre-half and more on the inside forwards, Giuseppe Meazza and Giovanni
Ferrari, to break down defences, and thus combined the previously used 2-3-5 and
W-M formations. In the 1940s, the centre-half became a stopper, and the revised
strategy was called the Sistema (¡°the system¡±). The new style was the
grandfather of the unyielding defence and quick counterattacks typical of
Italian football and it proved ultimately useful in the ever-quickening
international game.
Did You Know? Many of the closest players to Pozzo played for his hometown
club of Torino and died in the tragic Superga airplane crash of 1949. He was one
of the first on the scene of the accident and was chosen to identify the bodies.
Pozzo had once fielded Torino players in 10 of 11 positions for the Azzurri.
Pozzo was rumoured to have carried two good luck charms. One was a piece of
glass from the broken trophy that his team won after beating Hungary 5-0 in the
final of the Dr. Gero Cup (one of the forerunners of the European Championships,
also known as the Coppa Internazionale). The other was a return ticket for
transport to his beloved England that his family had purchased him. Pozzo had
remained in Italy instead. Pozzo is the only man to coach both reigning Olympic
and FIFA World Cup champions. Waving off concerns about the nationality of the
imported oriundi, Pozzo reportedly said ¡°If they can die for Italy, they can
play football for Italy.¡±
Management
Career
National team
1912, 1924, 1929-1948 Italy
International honours
1934 FIFA World Cup
Italy? Champion 1936 Olympic Champion 1938 FIFA World Cup France? Champion Club
1912-1924 Torino
Playing Career
Clubs
1905 - 1906 Grasshoppers 1906 - 1911 Torino
