Hall of Fame: Giovanni Trapattoni
Over a decade in charge of La Vecchia Signora he gathered her more jewels than anyone else in her history
Words: Giancarlo Rinaldi
Close your eyes and try to imagine Florence without its Duomo, Venice in the absence of St Mark’s Square or Rome minus the Seven Hills. It is equally difficult to contemplate the Italian football landscape without Giovanni Trapattoni. From his Serie A debut in 1960 to his current incarnation as ambassador to the Republic of Ireland he has always been a prominent feature on the Calcio skyline. It is hard to fathom how the game ever existed without him.
Although he has been a constant in the sport, it does not mean there is a uniform view of the man – quite the opposite. Ask followers of different clubs and you will get a very different vision of ‘il Trap’. For Milan fans he will always be the defensive midfielder who anchored their first European Cup triumphs. To Juventini, he is simply the most successful Coach they have ever had. At Inter, he is a record-breaker while in Florence he remains a nearly man. And, in many countries across Europe, he is an idiosyncratic Italian who came and coached a side to win the domestic League title. Wherever he has gone he has left his mark.
“I was lucky to play with a big team like Milan and then to manage sides like Juventus, Inter and Bayern Munich, and I won the odd honour,” he once said. “I started out as a boy and became a man, but I still lived in a world which I have a great passion for. The game of football has given me trophies and fame but it has never changed my values. I like to think I am still a simple person, close to his roots in Cusano Milanino.”
Trapattoni’s playing career was dedicated almost exclusively to the nearest thing he could get to a hometown club, Milan. He made his debut a couple of months shy of his 21st birthday and stayed for 12 years in total. He struck just three Serie A goals for the Milanese outfit but helped them win two League titles, a Coppa Italia, two European Cups, the Cup-Winners Cup and a World Club Cup. For anybody else that would be an impressive haul.
The thing is, after a swansong season with Varese, he went on to eclipse his playing achievements with his managerial exploits. Most people who saw him play didn’t doubt his perfectionist approach would translate well to the technical area. Few could have suspected just how successful he would be.
He started out as a Coach with the Milan youth team and learned his trade under the legendary Nereo Rocco. Within a little more than a year of his last Serie A appearance he took over the helm at the Rossoneri and never looked back. However, it was his switch to the bench at Juventus in 1976 which really saw his career set off into the stratosphere.
The alignment of the stars was almost perfect from day one. The Bianconeri had put together a glittering array of Italy’s best young talent but they were crying out for a Coach to guide them. In Trapattoni, just 37-years-old at the time, they found what they needed. While many would have been spinning out the twilight of their playing days, he was off in pursuit of more silverware.
It was not slow in coming and there was no shortage of it. Over a decade in charge of La Vecchia Signora he gathered her more jewels than anyone else in her history. Six Scudetti, two Italian Cups, all three major European trophies, the European Super Cup and the World Club Cup were brought to Turin. Go back and read that sentence again. Yes, that really is how much Trapattoni’s Juventus won.
There is a drive, however, inside the man which would not allow him to rest on his laurels. He could have become a ‘senator’ for the Bianconeri for life and lived off his reputation. Instead, he took up the challenge which has been the death of many a coaching career – the Inter job. It might have ruined the astonishing aura he had built up as a tactician. Instead, it simply added more lustre to the Trapattoni name.
The 1988-89 campaign was one of the greatest the Nerazzurri ever enjoyed. They destroyed the opposition and ended the season with 58 points out of a possible 68 – a stunning 11 ahead of closest rivals Napoli. It was a pillar to post victory as they shared the League lead in the first four weeks of the season before taking it to themselves and never relinquishing it again. A new chapter in the Trap legend had been written.
In Italy, perhaps, that was the end of his golden age. He returned for a second spell at Juve, but he had the impossible task of matching past glories. He also spent time with Cagliari and Fiorentina – taking the Viola as close as they had ever been to a third Scudetto. However, prior to those provincial adventures he opened himself up to new horizons.
In 1994, Trap took the Bayern Munich job for a season and returned to the German giants in 1996 helping them to win the Bundesliga. Since then he has won the Portuguese championship with Benfica and the Austrian title with Red Bull Salzburg before embarking on his amazing voyage as Coach of the Republic of Ireland. It is a challenge which pitted him against his one serious failure – the Azzurri.
Most would argue that the post with the Italian national team came his way a bit too late. By the year 2000, the 61-year-old’s methods were starting to seem unsuited to the tactics most players practiced in Serie A. The Arrigo Sacchi revolution had been and gone and his appointment seemed like a desperate attempt to go back to some time-honoured values. It did not work out.
He had the excuse of Byron Moreno and the infamous defeat to host nation South Korea as a reason for elimination from the World Cup in 2002. Even his team’s knock-out from Euro 2004, courtesy of a widely forecast 2-2 draw between Denmark and Sweden, had its extenuating circumstances. Nonetheless, it was hard to avoid the feeling he was yesterday’s man.
Those who know him, however, never thought any such thing. With a glint in his wily old eye, his grey hair as smooth as silk and a faithful bottle of holy water he was ready for a new challenge. At first it seemed his links with the Irish job were little more than a media orchestration, but slowly it emerged there was truth behind the rumours. The next thing you knew Trap O’Toni was born.
With hindsight, it was a perfect move for a man with a passion for the game which sometimes spills over in slightly comical displays of temper. The Republic of Ireland had lacked a charismatic leader since the days of Jack Charlton. Who better to fill that void than an occasionally eccentric Italian? And, despite its development, he still loves the game.
“Football has changed deeply,” he admitted in one interview. “Once upon a time it was all about passion and enjoyment and it was, in my view, a bit more human. Nowadays, the enormous financial interests surrounding the world of football can sometimes spoil that atmosphere and have taken the game away from the truly sporting values of the past.”
Approaching his 70th birthday and with nearly 50 years in top-flight football under his belt, most men would be thinking of a little retirement villa in the sun. Anyone with an appreciation of Trapattoni will understand that was simply never an option. This is a man whose finest hour in an Italy shirt was marking the great Pele out of the game. That kind of tenacity and ferocious determination still burns within him. And it looks like it will be quite some time before the flames ever die down.
(now that is pretentiousness 
