Arrigo Sacchi

Shortly-known shoemaker, he preferred to work in his father's footwear shop. From 1977 to 1982 he allen with alternate results Cesena primavera. In the year of the Spanish World Championship he attended the Coverciano course with Zdenek Zeman, at the end of which he graduated professional coach. He then led Rimini in C1 and the young ones of Fiorentina, but it was with Parma that he became fond of the great football: first he brought the ducals to Serie B, then to their guide he eliminated Milan from the Italian Cup.

His spectacular game, based on local defense and pressing he liked the president of Rossoneri Silvio Berlusconi, who wanted it with him. It was 1987 and in those years at the top of Italian football there was the Naples of Maradona that stood, like the vast majority of teams participating in the maximum championship, in a traditional way. Arrigo Sacchi, instead of joining the tactical canovaccio in voga, decides to side Milan with a revolutionary 4-4-2.

The basis on which his project was to be able to create a team in which each player had important tasks both in defensive and offensive phases, a team therefore where collaboration took a significant aspect. Sacchi will be able, with time, also to influence the football mentality, inculcating in the head of their players the concept of "total kick". Once the theoretical part happens, it remains that practice: Sacchi wants a team that imposes and imposes its own game, which attacks the opponent and obligations to subject him to his own rhythm.

The solution is simple and revolutionary: the total calcium of Crujff's Holland, the asphyxiating, the lightning-fitting. The team that you have in mind, once you go ahead will not be spared, but will continue to attack with the same intensity. Despite offensive football, Sacchi devoted great attention to defensive movements, so that almost always his teams were distinguished by being the least perforated at the end of the championship.

He led Milan from 1987 to 1991, winning many trophies: one championship (1988), two Champions' Cups (1989 and 1990), two Intercontinental Coppes (1989 and 1990) and two European Supercopies (1989 and 1990). On 13-11-1991 Sacchi took over Azeglio Vicin, as technical commissioner of the Italian National Team. The blue adventure lived alternate stages. In 1994, Italy won a historic final at the U.S. World Cup.

After a round of difficulties, the national team played a series of very hard but tactically well-played matches, eliminating Nigeria to the eighths, Spain to the quarters and surprising Bulgaria, which had discarded in Germany's quarters, in the semifinals. All three races were won for 2-1.

The final against Brazil, in Pasadena, ended on 0-0 after 120 minutes of play, despite Italy was penalised by the absences for disqualification of Mauro Tassotti and Alessandro Costacurta and by the not perfect physical conditions of Roberto Baggio and Franco Baresi, who returned from injuries. He came to the rigours for the first time in a world final and won Brazil, after errors from Baresi's diskette, Daniele Massaro and Roberto Baggio.

After that game, when players such as Mauro Tassotti and Franco Baresi gave the blue jersey farewell, Sacchi tried to age the team. Roberto Baggio, at only 27 years old, was dismissed by the technical commissioner, who preferred to focus on the young Del Piero. After two years of discreet level, the blues qualified for the 1996 European with good credentials.

However, the Azzurri vice-seasons of the world, which had also shown a good game during qualifying, were eliminated in the initial round, finishing thirds in Germany, Czech Republic (which eventually became the title) and Russia, even due to the rigour of the potential victory against the wrong Germany by Gianfranco Zola in the decisive match of the group.

On 06-11-1996, after the 2-1 defeat in a friendly match against Bosnia and Herzegovina played in Sarajevo, Sacchi left the position of technical commissioner of the national team to return to coach Milan, taking over in December to Oscar Tabarez, but without succeeding in obtaining the results of a time. The season of Milan, now compromised, ended with a bad 11° place in the championship. In 1998-1999, Sacchi became the coach of Atletico Madrid, a Spanish Liga team, but after seven months he decided to resign.

In 2001 he served for a short time as coach of Parma, but after health problems due to the excessive nervous tension caused by his profession, he changed jobs, becoming technical director. He began to perform this assignment in Parma (reusing to set up excellent formations even with reduced budget and discovering young champions like Alberto Gilardino) and then, from 2004 to December 2005, in Real Madrid.

Born: Fusignano (Ravenna), Italy 01-04-1946

Incarious period: 13-11-1991 at 06-11-1996.

Panchine: 53 games played, 34 wins, 11 draws, 8 defeats.

Expulsions: 0

Palmares: World 2nd place (USA 1994).

Players summoned by Arrigo Sacchi: