Gioco All’italiana: An Unbiased Explanation
We’re used to use typologies, creating a sort of imaginary map where we put things in closed boxes so we can analyse complex questions faster and easier. The Italian way of playing was registered by the punditry – and by the fans – as “reactive, defensive and ugly”. In the midst of Vittorio Pozzo, Helenio Herrera (even though he wasn’t Italian, he contributed to their football), Enzo Bearzot, Azeglio Vicini, Arrigo Sacchi, Giovanni Trapattoni, Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi, Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte and so many others, the most remembered characteristics are not those cited above, but the functional style of playing, a system of compensations and the fluidity of its functions and positions.
Herbert Chapman (1878-1934) created the “WM”, a way of playing that has developed itself as a better strategy to the new offside rule, making it possible for the team to distribute better in the pitch, while also having better organization in the offensive and defensive phases of the game. Space and time were mentioned in these lines, which is the traditional english school of football, later reformed – and revolutionized – by the Dutch and the Spanish, and which is all about dominating the spaces in the first moment and then trying to do something with the time he had with the ball. Yes, football is after all a sport focused on the domain of space and time – or time and space. Vittorio Pozzo, who was the Italian coach that won the 1934 and 1938 World Cups with the Azzurri, found out that he wouldn’t have so much merit in implementing the WM because, the way the Italians face the game – and life –, is so much different from the English vision. And it’s not a debate about “discipline” against “complacency”, the case is that the Italian player would rather first dominate the time and then move onto the spaces so he could be effective. This way, Pozzo created his own WM, in a more flexible manner in positional sense, where their players had more functions inside a strategy within the game, rather than the positional thinking related to the footballer role and which spaces he’d have to dominate.
The famous Catenaccio, created by Helenio Herrera, a French-Argentinian based in Italy, was a direct descendant of the “Pozzo-esque WM” having, just as in the 30's, the concept of a cover defender and another stopper defender, who would mark tightly the opposition’s forward. The 1960’s Inter, managed by Herrera, was the most successful team utilizing the Catenaccio, winning 3 Italian Serie A, 2 UEFA Champions League and 2 Intercontinental Cups.
Another marking feature of the gioco all’Italiana was the fantasista role, a largely technical player that acted in a spatially free role behind the center forward, and had the obligation of pulling the strings using his dribbling or making key passes. In the golden years of 1930, it was Giuseppe Meazza; in 1982, this man was Francesco Graziani; and by 2006 it was Francesco Totti. Yes, Italians enjoy the dribble and a beautiful game, besides the stereotypes. There’s an analogy of the fantasista with the Brazilian number 10, even though the Italian role is more of a second striker, while the Brazilian is more of a midfielder or enganche, as it is called in Argentina. The reference is not a pure and simple coincidence: Brazil also played, historically, a game made out of functions before positions, just as pretty much all of Latin America – especially Argentina and Uruguay. In Europe, Austria, Hungary, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia were by a long time examples of a functional football, freer and more fluid but, with the years coming by, European football started to be dominated by a more positional game having only few remnants of 30’s Austria, 50’s Hungary and 60’s URSS, beside others.
It is possible to compare the Italian World Cup winner sides of 1982 and 2006, making it clear that the tactic board is more related to the didactics of the games rather than showing exactly the players’ positions on the pitch; there is a clear relation between Bearzot and Lippi’s teams. This is not meant to assume that both teams were identical but rather to demonstrate that Italian coaches like to spread their teams in the field, just as the manner the positions show the roles and functions of the players in the game strategy.
In the back four, Cabrini/Grosso, the terzino fluidificante explore the wing space that are opened by the movements of Perrotta/Antognoni, the mezzala. Just as noted above, Graziani/Totti are the fantasista, playing as seconda punta; Conti/Camoranesi are the tornante, Tardelli/Pirlo are the regista, a sort of deep lying playmaker frequently compared to a quarterback in American Football terms. The Italian regista is usually protected by players of the like of Oriali/Gattuso, that have the function of pressing intensely when the ball is lost, just as blocking any tackle on the regista when he holds possession. This way, one can see the compensations existing in the team, the functions and roles before the positions, and the control of time before the space.
With the physical evolution of the game, Italian football gained complexity, especially through Arrigo Sacchi. His Milan side in the late 80’s was a team that would press to close and make rivals as narrow as possible, not only in terms of space, but also about time and pace. Pressing is all about diminishing the opponents possibilities, limiting them. Sacchi influenced Ancelotti, a former player in his Milan side. Carlo, the last Italian manager to won a UEFA Champions League — the iconic tenth of Real Madrid — , demonstrated how to win by using fluid systems that would offer great players the freedom to win games. Ancelotti morphed Real Madrid into a extremely functional team by designing a 4-3-1-2/4-3-2-1, offering Marcelo the possibility of going forward from the left back position, and Isco to roam freely, always looking where the ball is, the idea of midfielders working as bridges, moving away from their starting positions to compensate movements, as many other peculiarities.
The gioco all’Italiana is, in a few words, a game where the intuition is much more important than the global game, where the Italian culture of the Renaissance, the motherland, the opulence and beauty beyond the minimality appears on the perfect long balls by the regista, in the technical skills of the fantasista and in the compensating movements of the tornante. It is, indeed, a beautiful way to face the football, not less, not more, than so many other ways.
I have, some times, a sort of sympathy for the Italian football by the anachronical way it is portrayed and criticized, as something too defensive, focused on destructing and reacting play. It is possible to see in the punditry a true difficulty to comprehend the real intentions in a game played by people that face it in a different way before analysing the end product in a shallow and biased way. The game is beautiful. In all of its variations and strategies.
