Arrigo Sacchi Thread

Xudong · Dec 31, 2010

rossneri said:
did he really left milan because of that?

lol.

gaizka22 · Jan 25, 2011

Little something about Sacchi and the struggles that he faced in Milan.

Although his method was successful in bringing the 87/88 scudetto, Milan players still rebelled to what they feel his stifling method of zonal formation. MvBasten and Gullit in particular were keen to play the free flow types of formation that became their culture in Holland.

He told them both that five organized players are better than and would beat ten disorganised players anytime. And he proved it to them. He took 5 players : Giovanni Galli (GK), Tasotti, Baresi, Costacturta and Maldini. They will play against 10 players : Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Virdis, Evani, Ancelotti, Colombo, Donadoni, Christian Lantignotti and Graziano Mannari.

Those 10 players have 15 minutes to score against the 5 players. The only rule was that if the 5 players won possession or the 10 players lost the ball, the 10 players will have to start over from 10 meters inside their own half.

Sacchi did this all the time and even let the 10 players changed the players according to their liking. The 10 players never scored against the 5 players. Never once.

Even then, MvBasten used to ask him why Milan had to win and also be convincing. Isn't it enough to win tittles? Sacchi always felt that if they want to go down in history they don't just need to win, they must also entertain. This is the one dilemma that finally led Sacchi leaving Milan. But he had the justification more than 20 years later. Few years ago, French Football magazine made the list of 10 greatest teams in the world and his Milan was right up there. Then World Soccer magazine did the same article and his Milan came up in 4th position. But the first 3 - Hungary 54, Brazil 70 and Holland 74 - were all national teams and were geared up towards playing in a tournament, unlike a season long competition faced by a club side.

He sent copies of the magazine to MvBasten with a note : "This is why you need to win and you need to be convincing".

Sod-Lod · Jan 25, 2011

gaizka22 said:
Little something about Sacchi and the struggles that he faced in Milan.

Although his method was successful in bringing the 87/88 scudetto, Milan players still rebelled to what they feel his stifling method of zonal formation. MvBasten and Gullit in particular were keen to play the free flow types of formation that became their culture in Holland.

He told them both that five organized players are better than and would beat ten disorganised players anytime. And he proved it to them. He took 5 players : Giovanni Galli (GK), Tasotti, Baresi, Costacturta and Maldini. They will play against 10 players : Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Virdis, Evani, Ancelotti, Colombo, Donadoni, Christian Lantignotti and Graziano Mannari.

Those 10 players have 15 minutes to score against the 5 players. The only rule was that if the 5 players won possession or the 10 players lost the ball, the 10 players will have to start over from 10 meters inside their own half.

Sacchi did this all the time and even let the 10 players changed the players according to their liking. The 10 players never scored against the 5 players. Never once.

Even then, MvBasten used to ask him why Milan had to win and also be convincing. Isn't it enough to win tittles? Sacchi always felt that if they want to go down in history they don't just need to win, they must also entertain. This is the one dilemma that finally led Sacchi leaving Milan. But he had the justification more than 20 years later. Few years ago, French Football magazine made the list of 10 greatest teams in the world and his Milan was right up there. Then World Soccer magazine did the same article and his Milan came up in 4th position. But the first 3 - Hungary 54, Brazil 70 and Holland 74 - were all national teams and were geared up towards playing in a tournament, unlike a season long competition faced by a club side.

He sent copies of the magazine to MvBasten with a note : "This is why you need to win and you need to be convincing".

I always admire Sacchi for his great job, I see no one will repeat his historical's Milan era, till today I see no one; he is a living legend :star:

SpartanMilan · Jan 26, 2011

I love Sacchi, even though I am too young to remember his teams, I was never a very good player but I really want to be a coach, so he is my idol

seveners · Jan 26, 2011

If wasn't because of him (and Berlusconi) i believe most of us wouldn't support Milan (including me), because before him Milan was in the darkest period. GRAZIE SACCHI!

acerвιc wιт · Jan 26, 2011

gaizka22 said:
Little something about Sacchi and the struggles that he faced in Milan.

Although his method was successful in bringing the 87/88 scudetto, Milan players still rebelled to what they feel his stifling method of zonal formation. MvBasten and Gullit in particular were keen to play the free flow types of formation that became their culture in Holland.

He told them both that five organized players are better than and would beat ten disorganised players anytime. And he proved it to them. He took 5 players : Giovanni Galli (GK), Tasotti, Baresi, Costacturta and Maldini. They will play against 10 players : Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Virdis, Evani, Ancelotti, Colombo, Donadoni, Christian Lantignotti and Graziano Mannari.

Those 10 players have 15 minutes to score against the 5 players. The only rule was that if the 5 players won possession or the 10 players lost the ball, the 10 players will have to start over from 10 meters inside their own half.

Sacchi did this all the time and even let the 10 players changed the players according to their liking. The 10 players never scored against the 5 players. Never once.

Even then, MvBasten used to ask him why Milan had to win and also be convincing. Isn't it enough to win tittles? Sacchi always felt that if they want to go down in history they don't just need to win, they must also entertain. This is the one dilemma that finally led Sacchi leaving Milan. But he had the justification more than 20 years later. Few years ago, French Football magazine made the list of 10 greatest teams in the world and his Milan was right up there. Then World Soccer magazine did the same article and his Milan came up in 4th position. But the first 3 - Hungary 54, Brazil 70 and Holland 74 - were all national teams and were geared up towards playing in a tournament, unlike a season long competition faced by a club side.

He sent copies of the magazine to MvBasten with a note : "This is why you need to win and you need to be convincing".

I don't know but reading that gave me a shiver.

Great article. Van Basten and Sacchi had a difficult relationship towards the end of the latter's tenure at the club. Van Basten wanted to to play more freely instead of continually focusing on the same tactics which Sacchi had instilled. When Capello came to the club, he provided players like Van Basten, Gullit, etc, with more of a license to roam.

gaizka22 · Jan 27, 2011

Sod-Lod said:
I always admire Sacchi for his great job, I see no one will repeat his historical's Milan era, till today I see no one; he is a living legend

I believe his real legacy in Milan and world soccer is his innovative zonal formation. Future Milan coaches can bring more tittles than what he won in Milan but I don't think anybody will again managed to revolutionize the way soccer was played.

It was widely believed that what Sacchi's formation in Milan was the last real formational breakthrough in football. No coach or team has ever come up with something fresh lately. One of the few exciting but not so successful formation was when Roma used 4-2-3-1 formation with Totti up front alone but actually feeding the 3 attacking midfielders behind him. Aside from that, nothing new and sucessful was worthy of discussion.

Milan's formation under Ancelotti was quite a breakthrough but only in the way Pirlo was positioned in the DM position and operating deep in front of the 4 defenders.

dev1L · Feb 9, 2011

Sven · Feb 10, 2011

I know that sometimes it's boring to say the obvious, but beats me how a guy can wrote an entire article and don't think for a moment that maybe Gli Immortali was succesfull because of great tactics AND also great players.

Ashish · Feb 26, 2011

Dinar · Feb 27, 2011

Ashish said:

And whenever I come across that image/video of Sacchi consoling Baresi it always makes me sad and leaves me with a lil wet eyes.

Senatore_M84 · Mar 9, 2011

There's another good article on Baresi in Calcio Italia this month (picked up a copy, english magazine written by a lot of good writers who were on channel4 etc.)

I will scan it when I get home-home. However there is one exert on Sacchi that I have to type out and share:
----

"Sacchi's was a unique take on the Dutch Total Football model, with an emphasis on intense pressing and the importance of controlling space.

He had a fascinating way of demonstrating this to his superstar players: "I convinced Gullit and van Basten by telling them that five organized players would beat ten disorganized ones. And I proved it to them. I took five players: Giovanni Galli in goal, Tassotti, Maldini, Costacurta and Baresi. They had ten players: Gullit, van Basten, Rijkaard, Virdis, Evani, Ancelotti, Colombo, Donadoni, Lantignotti and Mannari. They had 15 minutes to score against my five. I did this all the time and they never scored. NOT once."
----

A genius.

For what it's worth, i see a lot more parallel's in Allegri's tactical philosophy to Sacchi than previous coaches. He just lacks a squad with same technique in midfield and completeness to dominate the same way.

Dinar · Apr 1, 2011

Happy Birthday Sir!

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/james-lawton-forget-the-hype-guardiolas-bar231a-are-still-eclipsed-by-the-true-greats-2238450.html

Dinar · Apr 15, 2011

ANCELOTTI HOSTS ARRIGO

Carlo Ancelotti welcomed a mentor, a former colleague and a friend to Cobham on Thursday.

The visitor was Arrigo Sacchi, the legendary Italian coach who was in charge of the AC Milan side that won two European Cups with Ancelotti in the side.

The two then worked together when Sacchi managed the Italian national side at the 1994 World Cup, reaching the final with Ancelotti as his assistant.

The Official Chelsea Website found out more about the 65-year-old's visit.

Arrigo, what brings you to the Chelsea training ground?
For a long time I have been saying I should come here to see Carlo, so I'm coming here for a couple of days to see the first team training and the Academy training.

Is youth football an interest of yours?
I'm responsible for the Italian national team for the young players from the Under 21s to the Under 15s, it's my work, so that's why it interests me.

How does the Chelsea Academy look?
Yes, it is a great organisation, one of the best I have seen in the world and I am sure in the future it will have great results. It is one of the best I have seen.

Tells us about some of the players you coached who also played for Chelsea.
Ruud Gullit was a fantastic player, he was very great offensively and defensively, and especially when he came to Italy because it was a defensive type of football and he was a very intelligent player.

I also had Gianfranco Zola in the national team. Zola was a great talent, a great person and had extraordinary technical ability. I had Gianluca Vialli also in the national team, at a difficult time for him but he was a great player in the national team. I couldn't use all his potential at that time but he was an important player.

Pierluigi Casiraghi for a lot of years in the national team with me was a very strong, physical player. A real battler, a player that played for the team.

Zola was very unfortunate to be sent off during the 1994 World Cup.
It was a mistake by the referee at the time. It was a big shame for Italy and for him at that time.

How was Carlo as a player?
He was a fundamental player for me, a professor of football. He was like a director of an orchestra in the midfield of my team.

You knew then he would be a good manager?
Yes. A lot of my players have become managers or coaches, because they were intelligent people and they learned. They didn't only have good feet, they had good brains.

What is your opinion of the current football in the Premier League in England?
The Premier League has grown a lot, English football has grown fantastically. There is great determination, and a fantasy about the way teams play now. It is a more complete competition without losing the attributes of modern football. It must be a great pride to play in English football, which is different to normal football. It is now living one of the best moments in its history.

It is always said you have long admired aspects of the English game.
I like it for the professionalism of the game. I came here to play with Milan and played at Wembley. I was amazed by the public and the way they understood the way the tactics of the football worked and the education and sporting aspect of the stadiums.

http://www.chelseafc.com/page/LatestNews/0,,10268~2338646,00.html

gaizka22 · May 1, 2011

Good comment from Sacchi towards Ancelotti. Sacchi trusted Ancelotti as the player who regulated the play. On his first season in Milan (also Ancelotti's first), Ancelotti was having difficulty with Sacchi's method and it was reported that Sacchi approached Ancelotti and told him that he is and orchestra director who couldn't read sheet music. So every day Sacchi made Ancelotti come 1 hour earlier for the training and had him practiced with the youth team until Ancelotti knew Sacchi's method inside out until he can 'sing in perfect tune' to Milan music.

Sod-Lod · May 1, 2011

gaizka22 said:
Good comment from Sacchi towards Ancelotti. Sacchi trusted Ancelotti as the player who regulated the play. On his first season in Milan (also Ancelotti's first), Ancelotti was having difficulty with Sacchi's method and it was reported that Sacchi approached Ancelotti and told him that he is and orchestra director who couldn't read sheet music. So every day Sacchi made Ancelotti come 1 hour earlier for the training and had him practiced with the youth team until Ancelotti knew Sacchi's method inside out until he can 'sing in perfect tune' to Milan music.

gaizka22

Dinar · May 25, 2011

I trionfi di Sacchi e del trio olandese

DivX | 1 438 Kbps | 672 x 432 | ESPN CLASSIC | Italian
545 MB | 53mn 0s

DOWNLOAD MEGAUPLOAD

Dinar · Jun 6, 2011

Was in the attendance along with Max to watch Primavera in action on Saturday.

Mr. Milanista · Jun 7, 2011

Why doesnt he coach anymore?

acerвιc wιт · Jun 7, 2011

He is the current Youth Teams Coordinator for the Azzurri.

Tosho · Jun 7, 2011

I envy every Milan fan from that period. God knows how good it was watching your team dominate like that year after year.

I would really want to see this guy back in Milan someday.

gaizka22 · Jun 8, 2011

Tosho said:
I envy every Milan fan from that period. God knows how good it was watching your team dominate like that year after year.

For a quick fix, buy this DVD :
Milan vs Steaua Bucharest Champions Cup 89 Final (full match with Italian commentary)
http://cgi.ebay.it/Dvd-nr-5-Le-Part...DVD_Cinema_Internazionale&hash=item4aaa04c662

Then try to find the SF game vs Real Madrid in the same season.

But, if you got some money to burn, buy the whole collection
http://cgi.ebay.it/BOX-10-DVD-LE-PA...DVD_Cinema_Internazionale&hash=item3f09cae8f6

Very nice 10 DVD set. Arrigo Sacchi (and different former players eg: Baresi, Costacurta, Savicevic, Massaro) give very detail explanation about each game from his own point of view. If only I could understand Italian.

Jasper · Jun 8, 2011

Mr.Milanista said:
Why doesnt he coach anymore?

IIRC he ended his second time at Parma referring to heart problems. Not the most unstressful guy in the world :lol:

Dinar · Aug 5, 2011

Gigi Cifarelli with Marco Pantani and Arrigo Sacchi

Edit: that must be a decade ago, of course.

Jasper · Nov 22, 2011

Arrigo Sacchi, the magician of Milan, begins to build a new Italy

The manager of the last team to win back-to-back European Cups is changing the way Italy's youth learn their trade

"I don't know." It is the honest answer to the inevitable question for Arrigo Sacchi, the one he might have been asked 1,000 times since May 2009 – when Pep Guardiola's Barcelona confirmed their arrival as Europe's predominant force by swatting aside Manchester United in the Champions League final.

Sacchi's Milan, the last team to win the European Cup in consecutive years, had previously been held up as the benchmark of footballing excellence – the 1989-90 vintage named as the best club side of all-time by World Soccer in 2006. But could even they have stopped Lionel Messi and company?

"What I would say is that, thanks to teams like Ajax, Milan and now Barcelona, football is a sport which has evolved and consequently it remains compelling," says Sacchi, stalling, but behind the trademark, aviator-style, reading glasses his mischievous eyes betray him. Sacchi is too modest a man to be drawn into bold claims but he is also too proud to let his teams be talked down. The suggestion that his old-fashioned 4-4-2 might prove too rigid against Guardiola's more flexible schemes draws a more pointed response.

"No. It is not a question of 4-4-2 or 4-2-1-3, it is a question of having a team which is ordered, in which the players are connected to one another, which moves together, as if it was a single player," he interjects even as the question is being asked. "Today few teams know how to do this. Few teams work as a unit – few, really few teams. They are all made up of little groups. There is no great connection, nor a good distribution of players around the pitch.

"Barcelona has this. You saw it against Manchester United [in this year's Champions League final], this was the big difference between the teams. One was very much a unit, all 11 players were moving as if they were one. The other was moving as individuals who happened to be in proximity to one another. That Milan team was a team who moved well, with the players very closely linked to each other. It would have been a great game against Barcelona, between two great teams."

Despite his initial reticence, it is clear that it is also a hypothetical match-up on which Sacchi has mused before. He insists that no special ruse would be necessary to restrict Messi ("We dealt with Diego Maradona") and that his compact formations – in which the gap between the defensive line and the attack was often 25 metres or less – would not necessarily be undermined by modern interpretations of the offside law (a subject discussed in Jonathan Wilson's recent fantasy match-up between the two sides). "You just need players who know how to read the game," he says.

Indeed, to witness the enthusiasm with which the 65-year-old discusses the game it is easy to be drawn into wondering whether he ought not still to be out there, putting his theories to the test. He thumps his fist into the table as he lays out his vision of how the game should be played, espousing total football concepts of a team who attack and defend as one. "You see defenders today who follow an opponent everywhere," he protests in one of his more heartfelt monologues. "The defender's point of reference should never be his opponent but a team-mate."

Yet it is not by chance that Sacchi has been out of management since 2001. For starters, and despite his belief in the value of the team over the individual, he would never again achieve similar success after leaving behind a Milan team who featured Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Paolo Maldini and Frank Rijkaard. Although he took Italy to a World Cup final in 1994, their performances failed to capture the imagination and the sceptics argued that only Roberto Baggio's genius had carried them so far. Euro 1996 proved disastrous and stints back at Milan and Atlético Madrid went little better.

More importantly, though, his body could simply no longer stand the strains of being a manager. Sacchi's final managerial appointment, at Parma, lasted 23 days before he was forced to move upstairs on account of stress-related illness. The same passion that has him hitting the table eventually proved overwhelming as a full-time tactician.

Instead, after several years as a director at Parma then Real Madrid, he moved into television and radio punditry. Then, in August, a new opportunity arose. Following Italy's inglorious group stage exit from the World Cup the Italian Football Federation had identified a need for complete reform of the national set-up. Sacchi was invited to oversee an overhaul of the youth sector, while his former Italy player Baggio was given similar responsibility for reinvigorating the famous coaching school at Coverciano.

What Sacchi found in Italy's youth teams disgusted him. "I see kids who are 14 or 15 years old who are already specialists. But football is not a sport of specialists," he says. "I was watching the under-15s the other day – 14-year-old boys – and the central defenders arrived and all they did was mark their man. They took themselves out of the game. This is suffering, this is not joy, this is not football. If someone does just one thing over and over, they will get better at that thing. But is football just one thing?"

But while he is anxious to change such a culture it will, by his own admission, take time. Sacchi's aim is to recreate a model for the national team along the lines of Barcelona, where every age group is taught using the same tactical approach and the same fundamental ideas about how the game should be played. "When I arrived every coach was just doing what he wanted," he says. "These kids were not getting continuity in their teaching."

But to achieve such goals a new generation of coaches is required and it is here that Sacchi's most radical and most strongly held beliefs come to the fore. Having never gone higher than the amateur ranks as a player, Sacchi believes fiercely that it is time football opened itself up to the idea of more non-footballers becoming coaches, citing the examples of José Mourinho and Zdenek Zeman as supporting evidence. As he famously put it when questioned during his own coaching career: "I never realised that to become a jockey you needed to be a horse first."

Sacchi had been able to enrol at Coverciano after five years working with the Cesena youth team but in Italy even roles such as that one are often inaccessible to people from outside the game. "In Italy they have still not opened up the registrations," says Sacchi. "I would let everyone – from pharmacists to porters – any person – become a manager. This way, in my opinion, we will end the domination of a single way of thinking. Instead we will have a thousand different ways of thinking. The more thoughts you have, the more you can grow."

And Sacchi certainly believes that Italy have a lot of growing left to do. Cesare Prandelli's success in steering the national team through the Euro 2012 qualifiers without a single defeat prompted triumphant headlines heralding a nation's footballing revival but Sacchi is more circumspect. Real gains must come from the base, not from a handful of good results achieved by a select few. There is a tendency among observers to react only to what is happening right at this moment, to "sail by sight", rather than looking further ahead.

"When you build a skyscraper, you make really strong foundations – if you don't make the foundations you will never see the skyscraper," he says. "If you build a shed, you don't need those foundations but it will never be an important building. Prandelli is doing a great job in difficult circumstances. But in the end the national team is only ever the last beneficiary of whatever work has been done at the outset. If something starts badly, it will not end well."

The same could be said of club football in Serie A, where the need to produce immediate results has led to a suspicion of youth. "When teams lose two games they sack the manager," says Sacchi, noting how fans will even go so far as intimidating the directors in order to affect a change of coach. "There is a great tension, a great pressure from the press but even more from the fans, a great violence."

Despite efforts to clamp down on such behaviour, it does persist. Just last season a group of Cesena Ultras vandalised a club shop where the wife of the owner, Igor Campedelli, worked, threatening to come back and do much worse if he did not fire the manager, Massimo Ficcadenti.

Campedelli, no shrinking violet, responded in kind, warning that, if anything similar happened again, he would "sell the team's best players and not register the team with the league [for the next season]". But others have proved less bold in the face of such anger.

Sacchi's hope is that Uefa's plans for financial fair play may provide at least part of the solution – forcing clubs to employ a more rational, finances-led assessment of a situation. "It is clear that debts take away calmness, planning and serenity from the clubs. And so the only things that will grow are violence, arrogance and hysterical reactions. I also hope it may get rid of all of those people who involve themselves in football not because they love the game but for other ends and who bring with them only arrogance, ignorance and incompetence."

Sadly one suspects that last hope may be a wish too far. Then again, before someone came up with the right foundations, even that skyscraper seemed like an impossibility.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/22/arrigo-sacchi-milan-italy?CMP=twt_gu

necromancer · Nov 22, 2011

Was just gonna post it

Awesome insights out of that interview. Particularly the very critical point of how defenders should have team-mates as reference point, and not opponents.

Sonny.Bill.Williams · Nov 22, 2011

Great read :thumbsup:

SpartanMilan · Nov 22, 2011

awesome read, thanks

Senatore_M84 · Nov 22, 2011

Great stuff

Jasper said:
"No. It is not a question of 4-4-2 or 4-2-1-3, it is a question of having a team which is ordered, in which the players are connected to one another, which moves together, as if it was a single player," he interjects even as the question is being asked. "Today few teams know how to do this. Few teams work as a unit – few, really few teams. They are all made up of little groups. There is no great connection, nor a good distribution of players around the pitch.

He's 100% right.

I still stand by wenger's point, the 4-4-2 is by far the most efficient formation if used correctly. Easily the most egalitarian. But it puts too much responsibility on each player to go two ways, and sadly these days few footballers are capable of doing it intelligently.

Beyond that, even if they are, if you're going to play a 3 node formation, you need a lot of chemistry which is increasingly hard in a squad game and with constantly changing personnel (this is a major reason why barca is so successful, in my opinion, commitment to their core).

That's why so many coaches go for 4-2-3-1's 4-3-1-2s etc. In a sense, it's much simpler on player. Requires less overall ability, and more understanding of your role. Puts more of a onus on the manager.

but eitherway if a smart manager is given time to properly build a group, they can win with any system

Ashish · Nov 22, 2011

Great coach, even allegris milan is also like sacchis milan , no specialists :lol:

they are not good at anything

All for one and one for all, tell that to Ibra and he will threaten to kill :lol:

its beyond me that capello succeeded sacchi and won, with such a different ideology :eek:

brilliant coaches, if that fat carlo was little more disciplined and rigrous he could have built a legacy but any way food loving boy is a big fat chubby mama, who transmitted leo with all we want is love ideology but poor leo forgot about football

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