Zonal Marking

Even when Lippi’s Juventus thrashed the opposition, they often did so efficiently rather than joyfully. In the 6–1 battering of PSG in the European Supercup first leg at a snowy Parc des Princes, Juve’s first four goals came from set-pieces. In fairness, they also defeated a shambolic Milan side by the same scoreline at San Siro in an incredibly dominant display, while the season’s most impressive victory was the 4–1 Champions League semi-final victory over familiar foes Ajax.

In the previous year’s final, Juventus were superior but only won after a shoot-out. This time they were rampant, underlining Italy’s dominance over Holland. Lippi, typically, sprung a tactical surprise in his 4–3–1–2 by using Ferrara and Iuliano, two centre-backs, in the full-back positions either side of Montero and Tacchinardi, forming a formidable, physically dominant defensive quartet. Up front, Juve pressed energetically, with Zidane joining Bokšić and Vieri in shutting down Danny Blind, Mario Melchiot and Frank de Boer. Ajax’s build-up play was disrupted and they uncharacteristically resorted to long balls, which played into the hands of Juve’s four centre-backs. Juventus, meanwhile, played direct football excellently, constantly launching the ball for Vieri and Bokšić, their strongest forward partnership, to batter Ajax’s defenders.

Zidane, meanwhile, ran the show. Supported by the positional discipline of Deschamps, and the energy of Di Livio and Attilio Lombardo – who switched flanks midway through the first half – the Frenchman was superb. In the first half he collected possession 40 yards from goal, advanced with the ball then slowed his dribble, before jinking past three challenges towards the left flank. He then crossed for Vieri, whose shot was deflected wide. Zidane swung in the corner, and Lombardo headed home. The Frenchman was involved in the build-up to the second, scored by Vieri. For the third, Zidane’s speed allowed him to intercept the ball in midfield and he launched a counter-attack, wrongfooted Danny Blind with a stepover and allowed substitute Amoroso to tap into an empty goal. Zidane scored the fourth himself, receiving a pass from Didier Deschamps and faking a shot to leave Edwin van der Sar on the ground, before finishing into an open goal. ‘He is, without a doubt, the greatest player I ever coached,’ said Lippi. ‘And I also think he’s the greatest player of the next 20 years. The previous 20 it was Maradona, and the next twenty, Zidane. I am convinced of that.’

The Ajax victory was arguably Juventus’s greatest under Lippi, and highlighted the three areas in which Italian football had an advantage over Dutch football: tactical flexibility, physical power and a standout individual performance from a world-class talent. ‘Zidane was different class, even in such a remarkable team,’ declared a defeated Louis van Gaal. ‘They are a great team with great skills, a pleasure to watch. I’ll repeat what I said after the first leg: I have never met opponents who beat us like Juventus did.’

Juve were surprisingly defeated 3–1 in the final by Dortmund, who were better prepared for Juventus’s physicality and nullified Zidane through Paul Lambert’s excellent marking. Yet the game could have been very different; Juventus created the better chances, twice hit the woodwork and Bokšić had a goal controversially disallowed. After Juve found themselves 2–0 down at half-time, they switched from 4–3–1–2 to 4–3–3, with Del Piero on for Di Livio. This forced Dortmund to retreat, and Del Piero’s backheeled goal from Bokšić’s cross seemed set to launch a comeback. Soon afterwards, however, 20-year-old Dortmund youth product Lars Ricken was summoned in place of Stéphane Chapuisat, and took all of 16 seconds to make it 3–1, scoring with his first touch after streaking away on a counter-attack and producing a remarkable long-range shot that curled around Angelo Peruzzi. It was a shock win. ‘Having watched that final as a spectator, the only sentiment I have is anger,’ said the injured Conte. ‘Because the weaker side won, and because there’s nothing you can do to set it straight – nothing except turn out again in next season’s Champions League, and win it.’

1997/98 marked a shift in Lippi’s approach up front. Vieri had departed for Atlético Madrid, and the arrival of Pippo Inzaghi, Italian football’s brightest young goalscorer, meant Juventus now had a solid first-choice centre-forward. Lippi rotated less, and there was more combination play between the front three. ‘Now, we have to keep the ball on the ground, rather than trying to knock it onto Vieri’s head as we did last season,’ explained Del Piero. Zidane, Del Piero and Inzaghi were largely allowed freedom from defensive responsibilities, and there was a clear split in Juventus’s system: the back seven players were functional, the forward trio were allowed freedom to express themselves. ‘This time, we have the best defence and the best attack,’ bragged Lippi.

Juventus regularly played a 4–3–1–2, taking advantage of their attackers’ natural qualities, but versatility in defensive positions meant plenty of switches to 3–4–1–2, particularly when playing against two strikers. On occasion, Lippi would ask Zidane and Del Piero to drift inside from the flanks in a 3–4–3. ‘There’s not a lot between 4–3–3 and 3–4–3,’ Lippi explained. ‘I want a foundation of seven players who make up a block between defence and midfield, and then in attack I need another three players who don’t need to worry about chasing back. They should have freedom to create chances.’ There was a major change from the previous season’s goalscoring figures, when no one had managed more than eight league goals; now Del Piero managed 21 and Inzaghi 18.

Juventus, and Lippi, excelled during the run-in. In mid-March, Juventus were 2–0 down at half-time to Parma. Lippi made two changes at the break, introducing Di Livio and Tacchinardi for Deschamps and Birindelli, then sacrificed Zidane for a third striker, Marcelo Zalayeta. Juve went from 4–3–1–2 to 3–4–3, and brought the game back to 2–2. The next weekend, with Zidane on the bench, Juve demolished Milan 4–1. Del Piero scored a penalty and a free-kick, Inzaghi finished a couple of one-on-ones.

But the most famous win came over Inter – their major title rivals – in April, when Juventus triumphed courtesy of a classic Italian combination: tactical thinking from the coach, magic from the number 10 and a hugely controversial decision from the referee.

Juventus’s tactics focused on hitting long balls into the space on the outside of Inter’s three-man defence for Del Piero and Inzaghi, and when Inter defender Taribo West advanced dangerously upfield and lost possession, Juve immediately broke into the space behind him. Edgar Davids slipped in Del Piero, dribbling forward in his classic inside-left position against Salvatore Fresi, the sweeper who had been dragged across to cover for West. Juve’s number 10 produced an extraordinary goal, pretending to change direction twice, courtesy of a stepover and then a feint, before attempting to cut the ball into the six-yard box and getting it stuck under his foot, then pivoting and somehow steering a shot into the far corner.

In response, Inter pushed forward in numbers. The intensity was increasing, with various skirmishes between players, and then came the infamous 69th minute. Inter played a long ball that bounced kindly for Iván Zamorano, who was held up by Birindelli’s desperate lunge on the edge of the box. Zamorano’s strike partner Ronaldo quickly raced on to the second ball, knocked it into a favourable shooting position, but was flattened by a body-check from Juve defender Iuliano. To the fury of Inter’s players, referee Piero Ceccarini waved play on. Juve launched an immediate counter-attack through Davids and Zidane. The Frenchman played the ball on to Del Piero, who was clumsily fouled by West. Ceccarini pointed to the spot.

Even by the standards of 1990s Serie A, when players weren’t afraid of confronting referees, the subsequent reaction was unprecedented. Within seconds Ceccarini was surrounded by ten furious Inter players, which eventually became 11 once Ronaldo had picked himself up from the opposition’s penalty box. Inter’s usually placid coach Gigi Simoni was sent to the stands, restrained on his way by a policeman, while shouting ‘Shameful!’ towards the officials. West’s tackle on Del Piero was definitely a penalty, his challenge so wild that his boot made contact with Del Piero’s shoulder. Iuliano’s challenge on Ronaldo was arguably also a penalty, but it was the type of coming-together that, in real-time, could be wrongly called by a referee making an honest mistake, especially just two seconds after Birindelli’s challenge on Zamorano.

But Italians don’t believe in honest mistakes when it comes to favourable decisions towards Juventus, and this decision prompted years of conspiracy theories. The debate peaked three days after the game inside Italy’s Chamber of Deputies. Parliament was suspended after an extraordinary row between far-right politician Domenico Gramazio, who pointedly declared that ‘a lot of Italian referees drive Fiats’ – Fiat being Juventus’s parent company – and Massimo Mauro, a former Juventus player turned politician, who repeatedly chanted ‘Clown’ at him, with ushers being forced to physically restrain Gramazio, who was attempting to punch Mauro. Del Piero, for the record, had his penalty saved by Gianluca Pagliuca, but his earlier piece of brilliance meant Juventus still won 1–0.

Juve wrapped up the title with a 3–2 victory over Bologna, courtesy of an Inzaghi hat-trick, including two trademark goals from inside the six-yard box, and a fine finish after brilliant interplay between Zidane and Del Piero between the lines. The target, though, was recapturing the Champions League, and Juventus fell at the final hurdle for the second year running, losing 1–0 to Real Madrid, courtesy of a Predrag Mijatović goal.

Lippi appeared unable to explain the defeat. ‘It was one of those evenings where a large part of the team played well below the level they are capable of,’ he said. ‘The reality is that over the whole 90 minutes, we were never dangerous.’ That sole Champions League victory in 1996 doesn’t adequately represent Juventus’s dominance of European football during this period – it probably should have been three in a row.

5
The Third Attacker

During the mid-1990s, Serie A boasted the most staggering collection of world-class attackers ever assembled in one country. With billionaire owners investing vast sums in various top clubs, moving to Serie A was an inevitability for the world’s best footballers. Yet among so much individual talent, one particular forward represented Italian football perfectly.

Roberto Baggio was a legendary footballer, an all-round attacker who could do almost anything with the ball: weave past opponents, play delicate through-balls, score from impossible angles. His brilliance on home soil at the 1990 World Cup planted an Italian flag in the footballing landscape, signifying that Italy would be the home of football for the coming decade, with his mazy dribble against Czechoslovakia the goal of the tournament. His performances had prompted Juventus to pay a world-record fee to Fiorentina, their bitter rivals, to secure Baggio’s services, a transfer that prompted full-scale riots in Florence, leaving dozens injured. Baggio supposedly objected to the transfer, and the following season famously refused to take a penalty against Fiorentina on his return to the Stadio Artemio Franchi. When substituted, a Fiorentina fan threw a purple scarf towards him. Baggio picked it up and took it into the dugout, a move that infuriated Juventus fans, who never entirely took to him. After leaving Fiorentina, he always felt more like an Italy player who happened to play club football, rather than a club footballer who occasionally played for his country; worshipped by the country overall rather than by supporters of his club.

Baggio was neither an attacking midfielder nor a conventional forward; he was the archetypal number 10 who thrived when deployed behind two strikers, orchestrating play and providing moments of magic. He was the type of player that demanded, and justified, the side being built around him, the type Italian football adores. However, the classic Italian trequartista role, which generally refers to a number 10 playing behind two strikers, was under threat. Arrigo Sacchi’s emphasis on a heavy pressing 4–4–2 left no place for a languid trequartista, and therefore players like Baggio were having to prove their worth.

Baggio was a reclusive, amiable character who nevertheless constantly talked himself into trouble. ‘I’m a ball-player, and I think it’s better to have ten disorganised footballers than ten organised runners,’ he declared, which couldn’t have been a more obvious put-down of Sacchi’s methods. Ahead of the 1994 World Cup, Sacchi couldn’t ignore Baggio’s talent, considering he was the reigning European Footballer of the Year, but Sacchi always deployed him as a forward in a 4–4–2, rather than in Baggio’s preferred role behind two strikers. Their most famous dispute came in the group stage match against Norway, when goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca was sent off in the opening stages. Italy needed a replacement, and Sacchi elected to substitute Baggio, who trudged off while calling his manager ‘crazy’. Supporters sided with the footballing genius rather than the totalitarian coach, but it was probably the right decision, and Italy won 1–0 with a goal from a Baggio – Dino, no relation. Sacchi’s Italy eventually reached the final, losing to Brazil in a penalty shootout with Roberto Baggio the unfortunate fall guy, blasting the decisive penalty over the crossbar. Nevertheless, the general feeling amongst Italian supporters was that their country had reached the final because of Baggio’s brilliance rather than Sacchi’s tactics. He was omitted from Italy’s disastrous Euro 96 campaign, with Sacchi citing fitness concerns. Nevertheless, his absence supported the growing public feeling that Italian managers were placing too much prominence on the system, and not enough on creative geniuses.

Baggio started 1996/97 at Óscar Tabárez’s AC Milan, playing as a number 10 behind Marco Simone and George Weah. But after disappointing results, Milan made two decisions that hampered Baggio. First, they reverted to their tried-and-tested 4–4–2 and then, even worse, they re-appointed Sacchi after he was sacked by Italy. ‘He’s two-faced. He tells me that I’m playing well during the week, but come Sunday he leaves me on the bench,’ blasted Baggio after a couple of months. ‘I feel like a Ferrari being driven by a traffic warden. A coach must, above all, be a good psychologist. If he imposes his demands harshly, he suffocates the personalities and creativity of his players.’ Baggio started searching for a new club ahead of 1997/98.

That club should have been Parma, who emerged as a serious title challenger thanks to the apparent wealth of Calisto Tanzi, founder and CEO of Parmalat, a locally based multinational dairy producer. As with various Serie A owners of the time, Tanzi’s wealth later proved to have been acquired by fraud, and Parmalat later collapsed in Europe’s biggest-ever bankruptcy; the club went bust too, and Tanzi was imprisoned. But during the mid-1990s, Tanzi’s beneficiary attracted a variety of superstars.

Not every coach, however, wanted superstars, and in 1996 Tanzi appointed an up-and-coming manager by the name of Carlo Ancelotti. He only had one season of Serie B experience, coaching Reggiana, but had previously been Sacchi’s assistant for the national side. Ancelotti was considered the next great Italian manager, and from the outset he followed Sacchi’s template perfectly, insisting on a compact side, aggressive pressing and, crucially, a 4–4–2.

This proved controversial at Parma, for two reasons. First, he’d inherited the wonderful Gianfranco Zola, a classic number 10 who had finished sixth in the previous year’s Ballon d’Or voting. But Ancelotti refused to change his system to incorporate Zola in his best position, and didn’t believe he could play as one of the two strikers, who were instructed to stretch the play and run in behind. Ancelotti instead deployed Zola awkwardly on the left of a 4–4–2. ‘We are no longer wanted,’ complained Zola, speaking about the plight of trequartisti. ‘At the moment everything is about pressing, doubling up as a marker and work rate.’ He fled to Chelsea, pointedly remarking that he would ‘be able to play in my proper role in England’, and made an instant impact in the Premier League, winning the 1996/97 Football Writers’ Player of the Year award despite only joining in November. His form attracted the attention of new Italy boss Cesare Maldini, who briefly based his Italy side around him, and he also received praise from Baggio, a kindred spirit. ‘I admire Zola, he’s taking brilliant revenge on all his doubters,’ he said. ‘That’s the beauty of football. When you have been written off, you can just as easily rise up again.’

In the summer of 1997, Tanzi was desperate to sign Baggio for Parma, and a contract had been agreed, but Ancelotti vetoed the deal at the last minute. ‘He wanted a regular starting position, and wanted to play behind the strikers, a role that didn’t exist in 4–4–2,’ explained Ancelotti. ‘I’d had just got the team into the Champions League and I had no intention of changing my system of play. I called him up and said, “I’d be delighted to have you on the team, but I have no plans for fielding you regularly. You’d be competing against Enrico Chiesa and Hernán Crespo.”’ Baggio instead signed for Bologna. Ancelotti clearly wasn’t against the idea of signing unpredictable geniuses; he sanctioned the return of Faustino Asprilla, explaining that the difference was because the fiery Colombian was happy to play up front, whereas Baggio and Zola would have demanded a withdrawn role. Ancelotti simply didn’t want a trequartista. It wasn’t merely a very public snub to the country’s most popular footballer; it also cast Ancelotti as an inflexible coach who favoured the system over individuals. ‘I was considered “Ancelotti, the anti-imagination”, give me anything but another number 10!’ he self-deprecatingly remembered. ‘At Parma, I still thought that 4–4–2 was the ideal formation in every case, but that’s not true, and if I had a time machine I’d go back. And I’d take Baggio.’

At this stage, Italian formation notation was slightly confusing. The determination to keep a compact team meant a number 10 was generally considered a third attacker, rather than deserving of his own ‘band’ in the system, and therefore what would be considered a 4–3–1–2 elsewhere was a 4–3–3 in Italy. ‘There are several types of 4–3–3 formation,’ outlined Marcello Lippi. ‘There’s the 4–3–3 formation with a centre-forward and two wingers, the 4–3–3 with two forwards and a player behind, and the 4–3–3 with three proper forwards.’ Lippi considered his later Juventus side, with Zinedine Zidane in support of Alessando Del Piero and Pippo Inzaghi, a 4–3–3 rather than a 4–3–1–2. Therefore, the debate was not necessarily about whether managers would deploy a number 10, but whether they’d deploy any kind of third attacker. Luckily, a couple of managers remained committed to fielding a front three.

An extreme example was Zdenĕk Zeman, Serie A’s most eccentric coach. Zeman was born in Czechoslovakia but as a teenager moved to live with his uncle, Čestmír Vycpálek, who would coach Juventus to two Scudettos in the 1970s. Zeman therefore grew up surrounded by Italian football culture, but he never played professionally, drew inspiration from handball and remained a mysterious outsider. He was a contemporary of Sacchi at Coverciano and the two became kindred spirits, determined to demonstrate that other Italian coaches placed too much emphasis on results. Zeman said he preferred to lose 5–4 than draw 0–0, because that way the supporters had been entertained. It wasn’t a philosophy shared by his contemporaries.

Zeman focused on short passing, zonal defending and developing youngsters. His idol was Ştefan Kovács, who had won two European Cups with Ajax in the early 1970s, and he remained committed to the classic Ajax 4–3–3. But whereas Dutch coaches prescribed touchline-hugging wingers, Zeman’s three-man attack generally comprised three goalscorers, dragging the opposition narrow and opening up space for rampaging full-backs. It was all-out attack.

Zeman performed impressively at Foggia in the early 1990s, before moving to Lazio in 1994, taking the club to second in 1994/95 and third in 1995/96, when his forward trio featured three proper strikers: Alen Bokšić, Pierluigi Casiraghi and the wonderful Giuseppe Signori, who won the Capocannoniere – the title given to Serie A’s top scorer – jointly in 1995/96 with Bari’s Igor Protti. Bokšić then departed for Juventus, so Zeman signed a replacement: Protti, of course. His forward trio now included the two top goalscorers from the previous campaign, although he only lasted midway through 1996/97 before being dismissed. What happened next was somewhat unexpected; Zeman spent the rest of the campaign attending Lazio matches at the Stadio Olimpico, joking that, having frequently been criticised for overseeing a leaky defence, he was assessing how his successor Dino Zoff would fix things. The following season, he was again regularly at the Olimpico, for a very different reason. Now he was coaching Roma.

At Roma, Zeman’s attacking trio offered greater balance. Rather than a trio of outright strikers, Zeman deployed just one, Abel Balbo, flanked by the speedy Paulo Sérgio and a young Francesco Totti, who drifted inside from the left into clever positions between the lines. Zeman’s 4–3–3 became more of a 4–3–1–2, with Totti the number 10.

‘Zemanlandia’, as his style of football became known, exploded into life with Roma’s 6–2 victory over Napoli in early October 1997, an extraordinarily dominant display in which Roma could have reached double figures. Balbo helped himself to a hat-trick, but Roma players were queueing up to provide finishes to their direct passing moves. They subsequently beat Empoli 4–3, Fiorentina 4–1, and both Milan and Brescia 5–0, although their defeats were often heavy too, and traditional Italian coaches particularly enjoyed putting Zeman in his place.

In December Roma lost 3–0 away at a Marco Branca-inspired Inter. ‘Some managers like to play possession football,’ Inter boss Gigi Simoni grinned afterwards. ‘I like to counter-attack. Everyone’s right, so long as they win.’ Zeman, however, insisted he was right even when Roma lost. His team became increasingly attack-minded as the season unfolded, scoring 17 goals in their final five matches to finish fourth, as joint-top scorers alongside champions Juventus. Zeman’s attacking trio provided balance in terms of style and goalscoring contribution: Balbo netted 14 times, Totti 13 and Sérgio 12. Totti also recorded ten assists; this proved to be his breakthrough campaign, and he would dominate Roma for the next two decades.

Roma slipped to sixth place in 1998/99, but again Zeman’s front three sparkled. Balbo had left for Parma, so Zeman promoted the tall, slightly awkward Marco Delvecchio, who managed 18 league goals with Totti and Paulo Sérgio chipping in with 12 apiece from either side. But Zemanlandia became a parody of itself; Roma scored the most goals in Serie A, 65, but conceded 49, more than relegated Vicenza.

The match that summed everything up came four games from the end of the campaign, when Roma hosted an Inter side that hadn’t scored away from home in open play for 700 minutes and had just appointed their fourth manager of the season, the returning, perennially cautious Roy Hodgson. Roma hit four goals, with Totti, Sérgio, Delvecchio and Eusebio Di Francesco all on the scoresheet. But they conceded five. Inter forwards Ronaldo and Iván Zamorano constantly breached Roma’s high defensive line to score two apiece, and then Diego Simeone headed a late winner. Defensive horror shows like this, and the 3–2 loss to Milan, the 3–2 loss to Perugia and the 4–3 loss to Cagliari, meant that Zeman wasn’t considered pragmatic enough to win a title.

Zeman also cemented his outsider status by dramatically accusing Juventus of taking performance-enhancing drugs. Juve doctor Riccardo Agricola was initially given a suspended prison sentence in 2004, then later acquitted. Zeman believes his determination to highlight Serie A’s dark practices hampered him in terms of future employment, and he’s probably right: he spent the next two decades managing the likes of Salernitana, Avellino, Lecce, Brescia, Foggia and Pescara, a succession of modest clubs for a coach who had significantly improved the fortunes of Lazio and Roma, regularly finished in the top five, and helped launch the careers of Alessandro Nesta and Francesco Totti. For all Zeman’s popularity with neutrals, his influence on managerial colleagues was negligible. He remained a cult figure.

Instead, the manager most instrumental in promoting the third attacker was Alberto Zaccheroni. He’d toiled his way up through Italy’s lower divisions, winning promotion from the fourth and third tiers, before working in Serie B and then landing his first Serie A job with newly promoted Udinese, finishing 11th in 1995/96. He was originally a disciple of Sacchi, a 4–4–2 man, so when he found himself with three quality centre-forwards throughout 1996/97, he played only two. He could pick from Oliver Bierhoff, the prolific old-school German target man whose two goals as a substitute had won the Euro 96 final; Paolo Poggi, a hard-working forward who made good runs into the channels; and Márcio Amoroso – a shaven-headed, explosive Brazilian who was inevitably compared to Ronaldo and who topped the goalscoring charts in Brazil, Italy and Germany. Bierhoff and Poggi started the season up front, with Amoroso playing when Bierhoff was injured. With a couple of months remaining in 1996/97, Udinese found themselves three places clear of the relegation zone in Serie A, with tricky trips to Juventus and Parma, first and second in the table, in their next two games.

These contests proved significant. Udinese’s trip to Juventus, defending champions and on their way to another title, produced an unthinkable 3–0 away victory, despite Zaccheroni’s side going down to ten men inside three minutes. Zaccheroni switched to a 3–4–2, and somehow his forwards ran riot: Amoroso scored a penalty, Bierhoff scored a header, then Bierhoff’s flick-on found Amoroso running in behind to make it three. It was perhaps the most surprising Serie A victory of the decade. After Udinese recorded such an extraordinary win with three defenders and four midfielders, Zaccheroni retained that defensive structure for the trip to Parma, introducing Poggi as the third forward. Udinese again recorded a shock victory, 2–0, and the 3–4–3 was here to stay. The new formation helped Udinese surge up the table – having been battling relegation, they finished fifth and secured European qualification for the first time in the club’s history.

Zaccheroni continued with 3–4–3 for 1997/98, taking Udinese to a historic third-placed finish. Bierhoff led the line, flanked by Poggi and Amoroso running into space. Udinese scored in every game that season, and Zaccheroni constantly pointed to his side’s goalscoring figures to underline his belief in open, expansive football. Udinese beat Lecce 6–0, Brescia 4–0, Bologna 4–3 and Zeman’s Roma 4–2. ‘My system was not the 3–5–2, which you could observe elsewhere, but a system that included four midfielders,’ Zaccheroni later recalled. ‘And there’s a big difference. I looked around, I studied and I observed things that I didn’t like. Often there were five across the midfield, which I don’t like at all because eventually it becomes a 5–3–2 and you lack an attacking threat. I observed Cruyff’s Barcelona and Zeman’s Foggia, but these weren’t the solutions I was looking for; I didn’t want three in midfield [in a 4–3–3], which inevitably forced you to defend in a 4–5–1. A midfield four, however, can effectively support the attack and defence simultaneously. My target was to keep three up front, so they didn’t have to retreat all the time, so I started working on it, first with pen and paper, and then on the pitch.’

Zaccheroni became defined by 3–4–3, and beyond the simple numbers game, Udinese were demonstrating that underdogs could attack. ‘Once, when coaches took their teams to, say, San Siro to play Milan or Inter, they had to pray for a result,’ said Zaccheroni. ‘Now the mentality is different. We can go there with our own ideas and our own style of play.’

Zaccheroni took his style to San Siro somewhat literally, by becoming the Milan coach in 1998. This was, theoretically at least, a dramatic step down. Zaccheroni’s Udinese had finished fifth and third in the previous two campaigns, while Milan had endured two disastrous campaigns, finishing 11th and 10th. Zaccheroni was a highly promising coach, but the prospect of implementing a 3–4–3 at the club which had dominated Italian football with Sacchi’s 4–4–2, and largely stuck to that system since, seemed daunting. ‘Don’t expect an Udinese photocopy,’ he declared, despite the fact he’d brought both striker Bierhoff and right-wing-back Thomas Helveg with him from Udine. ‘Milan will play with three defenders, four midfield players and three forwards, but that doesn’t mean that it will be the same as Udinese’s play. Anyway, 3–4–3 is not a magical formula. Perhaps it will be a new interpretation of 3–4–3.’