Vittorio Pozzo (March 2,
1886 in Turin
, Piedmont, Italy
– Ponderano
(Biella) December
21, 1968) was an Italian football
coach who was most famous for leading
the Italian national
team to victory in the 1934 FIFA
World Cup and 1938 FIFA World
Cups; managed the side that won the 1930 and 1935 editions of
the Central European
International Cup, as well as the 1936 Olympic football gold medal and
the 1928 Olympic football
bronze medal. He oversaw the famous unbeaten run of the
Italian side from December 1934 until 1939 and was also famous for
creating the
Metodo
tactical formation. He is the only coach to ever win two FIFA World
Cups.
Background (1886-1928)
Affectionately known as
Il Vecchio Maestro (
The
Old Master) and described as both an Anglophile and
authoritarian, Pozzo's time as national coach coincided with the
period in which Benito Mussolini governed Italy and it has been
written that Pozzo was a beneficiary of that era in that he was
able to command a type of control over players not permissible in
the aftermath of that time.
In his formative years Pozzo, who had come from a reasonably
comfortable background, travelled widely.
He studied in Manchester
at the turn of the 20th century and met Manchester United half-back Charlie Roberts and Derby County's inside-left Steve Bloomer. An Anglophile, legend
has it that later in life Pozzo once purchased and never parted
with a ticket to England.
Pozzo played professionally in Switzerland
for Grasshopper-Club Zürich during
the 1905-06 season and in France
before
returning to Italy where he helped to found Torino FC on December 3, 1906, playing for the
Turin side from 1906 to 1911. After a stint managing
the Italian Olympic
side at the 1912 Olympic
Games in Stockholm
, where Italy lost 3-2 to Finland
in the first
round match at Traneburg in a match
refereed by Hugo Meisl, Pozzo took charge
of Torino from 1912-1924. During
this time he took up a management post outside of football with the
Pirelli organisation and served with Italian
forces in the Alpines during the
First
World War.
Pozzo was
coach of the Italian Olympic side at the 1928 Summer Olympics held in Amsterdam
. Italy were awarded the Bronze medal after
having lost a tight semi-final 3-2 to Uruguay
after added
time .
Coach of the National side
Pozzo returned to coach the national side on a permanent basis from
December 1929 onwards on the basis that he would accept no money
for the position.
Italy won the 1930 version of the Central European
International Cup, defeating Hungary 5-0 in Budapest
where Hungary had yet to fail to win a game.
They pipped the title from Meisl’s Austrian side, the so-called
Wunderteam who went
on to win the second edition of that tournament. As a memento of
that victory, Pozzo would always carry a chip off the Central
European International trophy. The trophy, made of Bohemian
crystal, was dropped when Italy first won it, smashing into so many
pieces that it could not be fixed.
Pozzo was remembered as a decisive leader. Following the 1930
defeat to
Spain, Pozzo
dropped
Adolfo Baloncieri, his
captain and an international of ten years standing. In the lead-up
to the 1934 tournament, the auguries were not good. In 1932,
Austria beat Italy, as did the Czechs, while a defeat to Hungary
was only averted because of a missed penalty.
This led to Pozzo
bringing back the Bologna
player
Angelo Schiavio, who had been a
regular goalscorer for his club, but in February 1934 with the
World Cup looming Austria defeated Italy in Turin 4-2, Again Pozzo
felled the axe on the team captain Umberto Caligaris.
Successes during the 1930s
During the
1934 FIFA World Cup
in their home country, Pozzo's Italian side benefited from
controversy in the first tournament on European soil. The game
against Spain in the quarter-finals raised questions against the
performance of the referee
Louis Baert
in the match, a draw; and in the replay, Swiss referee
Rene Mercet did not escape criticism and was
banned upon his arrival home by the Swiss FA. A clear foul on
Ricardo Zamora for the equaliser in
the first leg went unpunished while another on
Joan Josep Nogués in the replay
earned Italy a semi-final place.
Italy benefited as well from the grueling quarter-final played
elsewhere between Hungary and Austria. By the time of the
semi-final,
Johann Horvath was absent
and Italy won by another disputed goal over Austria.
Enrique Guaita, one of the squad's
Oriundi, scored from close range
after
Giuseppe Meazza had fallen
over goalkeeper
Peter Platzer. On the
back of the World Cup success, Pozzo was awarded the title of
Commendatore for greatness in his profession.
The excesses of the side, however, boiled over at the
Battle of Highbury in December 1934
against a tough English side led by Arsenal's uncompromising
Wilf Copping.
Italy repeated as
Central European
International Cup winners in 1935, going into the
1936 Summer Olympics on the back of a
run which had seen them lose only to Austria and England since
October 1932. The Italians, all registered as students, won the
Olympic Games that year, defeating Meisl’s Austrians in the final
2-1.
Annibale Frossi, the myopic
striker who Pozzo had discovered from obscurity in
Serie B, led the front-line throughout the
tournament.
By the time of the 1938 World Cup, Italy remained undefeated in
recent competition under Pozzo.
Silvio
Piola earned his first cap in 1935 and became an instant
success, scoring regularly for the national side and proving an
effective partner for Meazza. Legend has it that ahead of the
semifinal against Brazil, Pozzo learned that the Brazilians were so
sure of themselves and confident of appearing in the final in Paris
that they had requisitioned the only airplane from Marseilles to
Paris on the day after the semifinal against Pozzo's Italy.
Pozzo went
to the Brazilians that sunbathed in Côte
d'Azur
and asked them to surrender him the aerial bookings
in case of Italian victory. The Brazilians apparently
arrogantly answered "it is not possible because to Paris we will
go, because we will beat you in Marseilles". They then reportedly
offered Pozzo the ironic hospitality of a plane ride to Paris to
see them play in the final. Pozzo reported to the Italian side what
the Brazilians had told him to rouse the pride of the players. It
was the psychological premise for revenge in the match, which Italy
went on to win 2-1. In the resulting final, Italy duly won their
second world title in a 4-2 free-scoring game against
Hungary.
End of coaching (1939-1948)
There were slight wobbles with the side just after the advent of
the second World War, but Pozzo remained in position throughout the
hostilities.
At the Olympic Games in 1948, Pozzo’s last
match as Italian coach came was a 5-3 defeat to Denmark in the
quarterfinals at Highbury Stadium
in London
.
Pozzo finished with a record 64 wins, 17 draws and 16 defeats from
97 games. His percentage of victories is equal to 65.97% of the
played games, a record among Italian
national team coaches.
Later Life (1949-1968)
Pozzo
became a journalist with Stampa
after
retiring from football management, resuming a career he had worked
in prior to his successes as coach of Italy. He reported on
the
1950 FIFA World Cup as part
of his work covering Italian
national team matches. After
watching
Italy win
the 1968
European
Football Championships, the successor to the
Central European
International Cup he had won twice with the Azzurri, Pozzo died
that year.
The Metodo
Pozzo’s reign as Italian national coach was characterised by three
matters. The first was the tactical development of the ‘metodo’
formation. This was not Pozzo’s original idea but one spawned of
his two famous contemporaries.
In London, Herbert Chapman and in Vienna
, Hugo Meisl
had both seen the need to encourage more attacking play following
the change in the off-side law in 1925. Whereas previously
formations had remained the same since the 1890s (the 2-3-5
formations) the change in the off-side law saw Chapman use a
forward-lying ‘stopper’ (in the Arsenal team of the 1920s this was
a role adopted by
Herbie Roberts, a
slow runner but good passer of the ball). By having the centre-half
playing just behind the inside forwards Chapman was able to have
Roberts tackle the opposing centre-forward and then deliver the
ball smartly in order to set up attacks. There was also greater
onus on the wingers attacking the goal more. Cliff Bastin was a key
component of the Arsenal success story in the 1930s; a free scoring
winger. Later Pozzo evolved the formation into the
Sistema
(2-3-2-3 formation), which created a stronger defence. The relative
strength of Chapman's and Pozzo's ideas was put to the test in 1933
during their European tour, when England (led by Herbert Chapman
(the first coach to take full control of the national side)) drew
1-1 with Pozzo's Italian side.
Oriundi
The other matter that Pozzo benefited from was ‘
oriundi’ (that is foreign-born Italian ‘nationals’)
which permitted Italy to take huge advantage of those players from
other countries who could claim some type of Italian ancestry. In
the 1900s Pozzo had been immersed in the chivalry of physical and
fair football. In the 1930s he was able to call on
Luis Monti a notoriously tough-tackling
midfielder (who had appeared for the Argentinians in their 1930
World Cup final defeat) and who was a vital part of the success of
the team in the 1934 World Cup.
About the criticisms receipts to call on oriundi players in the
victorious world cup of 1934, reporting to the fact that them same
served in the army, he said: "If they can die for Italy, they can
also play for Italy".
He was also a fan of
Raimundo Orsi, a
fellow Argentinian who he was able to prize away from Buenos Aires
after an undistinguished stint in the Argentinian shirt. Orsi,
never a prolific goalscorer, would reward Pozzo’s faith with a
freakish goal in the 1934 World Cup final. Not that he dispensed
with home-grown talent. His penchant for attacking play is
demonstrated by the fact that as well as Schiavio, Pozzo was
successful in converting
Giuseppe
Meazza, who was captain in 1938, from a striker into an inside
forward; indeed Pozzo’s reign is linked closely to the success of
his strikers.
Fascist salute
The other matter was the historical period.
Brian Glanville has stated that Pozzo was
not a fascist; he did, however, work alongside
Giorgio Vaccaro - a general from the
fascist militia during that first World Cup
campaign.
The third edition of the FIFA World Cup took place in France, where
numerous refugees who had escaped the fascist regime in Italy booed
the Italian national team. In the first match of the Italian
national team, against the Norwegian national team, among the
twenty-two thousand spectators there were three thousand escaped
antifascist Italians that heavily contested “Mussolini's national
team”. Pozzo replied to the demonstration with a memorable episode.
To the presentation of the teams in field,
gli azzurri had
made the fascist salute as it was custom. They were overwhelmed by
the whistles. He feared that that reception demoralized the
players. When the whistles diminished, because
gli azzurri
lowered the arm, Pozzo that was lined up with them to the center of
the field ordered a new Roman salute. He said then: “So we won the
intimidation.”
The coach Pozzo ordered the players to continue with the fascist
salute during the national anthem.Afterwards he declared: "Our
players don't even dream to make some politics, but the fascist
salute is the official flag of the moment, it's a sort of ceremony
and they must show allegiance to it. I have my ideas, but I know
what my duty is. When we take to the field we are solemn and
deafening hisses attend us. And we don't lower the hand until the
hisses are stopped. The action of intimidation has not succeeded".
The
quarter-final, in Paris
against
France, saw Italy play in the infamous all-black strip (It
is open to conjecture as to the reason for this decision although
some ideas have been mooted: to intimidate the French; to
antagonise the refugees and anti-fascist patriots in the
crowd. No single idea has succeeded.
One thing is certain, Italy played tough, attacking football during
that period; the grace of Orsi, Meazza and Schiavio was backed up
by Monti and Locatelli.
Honours
International
Italy
References
-
http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/coaches/coach=61560/bio.html
- http://soccernet.espn.go.com/wc/story?id=203595
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]
- [4]
- Under other sources - 65 wins, 17 draws and 15
defeats
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