A History of AC Milan in European Cup Finals. Part Three. 1969, Santiago Bernabéu: Milan 4 Ajax 1

When considering the 1969 European Cup final it would be more instructive to focus upon its legacy than the match itself, in which AC Milan completely outplayed Ajax. I have discussed elsewhere the merits of the Milan side of the 1960s, so it would add little to repeat them here. Rather, what I would like to focus on is the role that this match played in convincing Ajax’s manager, Rinus Michels, to change the system at the club – a change that would lead to the creation of one of the greatest teams the world has ever seen: the Ajax of the early 1970s. As such, whilst looking briefly at the final, the main focus of this piece will be to look at the system that developed in response to Michels’ realisation that his team would have to change their philosophy to be able to compete with teams such as Milan.

We shall begin by looking at how Milan and Ajax had faired prior to the final at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. Following Milan’s last European Cup win, the manager, Nereo Rocco, moved away from the club to take charge of Torino. Until his return to Milan in 1967, the club failed to win any major honours despite coming close to the Scudetto in 1964 and 1965. During this period, Herrera’s Inter achieved domestic and European success, picking up two European Cups in addition to an additional two league titles, thereby securing their legacy at the expense of the Rossoneri in the 60s. Yet coinciding with the return of Rocco was a return to winning. Under El Parón Milan claimed two trophies in 1968: Serie A and the Cup Winners’ Cup (beating Uwe Seeler’s Hamburg 2-0 in the final).

The team had evolved since their 1963 European triumph, with Altafini departing for Napoli and Maldini for Torino, leaving Gianni Rivera to take the captain’s armband. A number of players possessing real quality came into the team, however. Chief amongst these were the German defender Karl-Heinze Schnellinger, and goal-scoring winger Kurt Hamrin (who scored both goals in the Cup Winners’ Cup final). Elsewhere, Fabio (father of Carlo) Cudicini came into the set up in goal, and Sormani and Prati took positions up front. This team was, arguably, stronger than Rocco’s first European Cup-winning side, securing their route to the final by defeating Celtic in the quarter finals and defending champions Manchester United in the semis (knocking out both of the previous winners whilst conceding only one goal over four games). Certainly Rocco thought that the 1969 vintage was superior, claiming: ‘Hamrin, I think, tilts the balance between this team and that one.’

Mr Rocco and his fabulous team

 But Ajax too had a team packed with talented players. They had dominated the Eredivisie in recent years, including a wonderful season in 1966-7 where they scored 122 goals in 34 games. The team was built around one of the greatest players of all time – Johan Cruyff – but he was not alone. Piet Keizer, Wim Suurbier, Barry Hulshoff, Sjaak Swart, and Velibor Vasovic were also in the team that would line up against Milan in the 1969 European Cup final. The match, however, did not do their talent any justice.

Whilst Trapattoni marked Cruyff out of the game, Milan attacked from the outset, hitting the post within the opening minute. Prati headed them into a lead on 8 minutes, and then doubled the lead just before half time. Vasovic scored a penalty on 60 minutes (as he had for Partizan Belgrade against Real Madrid in the 1966 final), but it was of no use. Sormani blasted in from range, but the fourth Milan goal was particularly impressive, as John Foot describes in Calcio:

‘With fifteen minutes to go…Gianni Rivera played a one-two on the halfway line and broke clear towards the Ajax goal. He pushed the ball past the onrushing goalkeeper but out wide to the by-line. Then, in the black and white film, the game appeared to stop. Rivera, like all great players…seemed to be playing in a kind of time capsule. He looked up, waited, changed his mind, moved the ball to his right foot and floated it across to the far post where, seconds earlier, there was just space. Out of nowhere, an attacker rushed forward to meet the ball perfectly with his head. Pierino Prati, the Milan number nine, had begun his run seconds earlier, from 40 yards out. It is difficult to define genius, but Rivera’s pass – and his ability to wait – came close.’[1]

All in all it had been a disaster for Ajax; their naïve attacking football was undone by an organised and stylish Milan. Hulshoff would later admit: ‘We were walking in the shadow of Milan… They were too experienced. We were overwhelmed in every way. In every way they were better.’[2] Yet rather than let this defeat destroy them, Ajax used it as a springboard for a tactical project that would change football forever.

But in order to implement these changes, it was necessary for Michels to make some changes to the playing squad. Out went Nuninga, Danielsson, van Duijvenbode and Groot. In came Gerrie Mühren, Nico Rijnders, and (promoted from the second team) Ruud Krol. Krol, one of the outstanding players in Dutch football, was brought in to replace van Duijvenbode, who, at the time, was Holland’s left back. Michels simply told Krol that he was better. Krol didn’t disappoint. Hulshoff too was briefly dropped, but regained his place after a few matches on the sidelines.

Sjaak attack

It would be an entirely banal point to remark that Cruyff was the most important part of this Ajax team, so instead I will remark on two other players who had a notable impact. Firstly there was Vasovic, the Yugoslavian sweeper who, modestly, claims to have co-created total football with Michels. Neeskens too was essential to the team, aggressively pressing in the midfield to win the ball back from as high up the pitch as possible. Indeed, Vasovic’s ability to step up from defence into midfield, and Neeskens’s determination to win the ball were very important to Ajax’s pressing game, which was more of an offensive than a defensive measure, and was central to the system that Michels would put in place.[3]

In order to take his team to the next level, Michels began to implement what would later be called totaalvoetbal or total football. This system has a theoretical background almost as compelling as its practical implementation. As such we will consider both. An often misunderstood term, total football is not synonymous with attacking football; rather it was a system based around the idea of attacking the ball and playing an aggressive defensive line in order to contract space on the pitch when in possession. There was also a greater emphasis on universality, or the idea that defenders could get involved with attacks, strikers could defend and so on. Perhaps the essence of total football is expressed best by David Winner in his definitive work on Dutch football, Brilliant Orange. Winner reads total football through a number of other Dutch movements, principally architecture. Perhaps the most telling quote that he appropriates comes from Herman Hertzberger: ‘Each form must be interpretable in the sense that it must be capable of taking on different roles. And it can only take on those different roles if the meanings are contained in the essence of the form.’[4] This is not to say that positioning was arbitrary, however. As Hulshoff noted: ‘The team is stronger when they play from their normal positions, so when the positions change it is only temporary and you switch back as quickly as possible.’[5] Indeed the football played at Ajax was so instinctive to them that it became ‘habit football’.[6] The players knew what their team mates were doing and where they needed to be in relation to this. A system where individuals are incorporated as a part of a team has been discussed on this site before.

And yet it was not just universality, but totality that marked total football. As mentioned above, it is the idea of individuality incorporated within a system. It is the idea that the team cannot be considered as a series of individuals, but rather as a series of individuals within a team, the cumulative effect of which is greater than the sum of its parts. Hence the notion of relation was crucial. All players had to understand that they were related, not just individuals acting within a void. In the words of the architect JB Bakema, ‘Man [has become] aware of his being part of a total energy system.’[7] Interestingly, Jonathan Wilson suggests that there is a link between this idea at the heart of total football and secularism (or at least those societies in which secularism is prevalent).[8] However if there is any kind of connection, surely it should be inverted. What total football opposes is a radical individualism and its corollary, the unencumbered self, where freedom is expressed as libertas indifferentiae. Yet this notion of the self is precisely alien to a theistic worldview, in which all people (qua creatures) are related through the medium of creation. The philosopher Charles Taylor speaks of the modern ‘buffered’ self and the earlier ‘porous’ self. ‘The buffered self is essentially the self which is made aware of the possibility of disengagement. And disengagement is frequently carried out in relation to one’s whole surroundings, natural and social. But living in the enchanted, porous world of our ancestors was inherently living socially.’[9] As such the porous self would not only understand its relation to other players, but also to its surroundings: the pitch, the space, the stands. It would seem that it is this notion of the self, rather than the radically disengaged secular self, that would nurture total football. Within this worldview the relationship between people is not arbitrary or violent (like a theory of rights), but is a primordial ethical responsibility. In other words, in a theistic cosmos we genuinely owe something to others. Applying this to Ajax of the 1970s we can see how the notion of real responsibility filtered into the team: players moved to cover their team mates when they were out of position, they pressed as a team to win back the ball for others; their sense of responsibility was not arbitrary, but real.

Furthermore, the notion of relationship was not limited to the playing staff. Under Michels’s successor, Kovac, there was a great degree of player input on management decisions. Kovac did not shy away from letting his players voice their opinions, contributing to tactics and team sheets. Such a relationship where the players were actively involved in decision making led to a degree of tactical and creative flourishing. Indeed, despite a laxness in discipline, the football played under Kovac was arguably superior to that played under Michels. Returning to the similarities between total football and a theistic worldview built around the idea of relation, the notion of the team taking part in decision making, rather than the manager acting autonomously, is somewhat reminiscent of the notion of sobornost’ (conciliarity) inherent to the Russian Orthodox Church. Sobornost’ can be understood as ‘the expression of unity and multiplicity of the spirit of God’s love and unites the individual and collective principles. All human organisations should be modelled on this perfect principle. The individual is free, but only in submitting to a higher authority, as is true even for Christ. According to this principle, everything is and should be a combination of the collective (sobornoe) and the hierarchical.’[10] This explains the Ajax philosophy perfectly: a combination of the collective and the hierarchical. 

"It's a trap!"

These principles can be seen as the basics of total football. Playing in this way, Ajax had a huge impact on the course of Italian football: by defeating Inter and Juventus in the European Cup finals in 1972 and 1973, they did much to end the fashion for negative forms of catenaccio and to prompt a move towards il gioco all’ Italiana. It was fateful that it was AC Milan who, through their complete domination in the 1969 European Cup final, provided encouragement for Ajax to create this brand of football, since the principles subsequently established by this Ajax team would later be adopted (and arguably perfected) by Milan. The next time that the Rossoneri would appear in a European Cup final, two decades later, they would be led by a coach inspired by Ajax and a trio of Dutch stars educated in their country’s footballing tradition.

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[1] John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football (London: Harper Perennial, 2007), p. 158.

[2] David Winner, Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football (London: Bloomsbury, 2000) , p. 34.

[3] Jonathan Wilson, Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics (London: Orion, 2008), pp.226-7.

[4] Winner, Brilliant Orange, p. 29.

[5] Ibid., p. 36.

[6] Wilson, Inverting the Pyramid, pp. 227-8.

[7] Ibid., p. 224.

[8] Ibid., p. 224.

[9] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (London: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 41-2.

[10] Christine Evtuhov, The Cross and the Sickle: Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate of Russian Religious Philosophy (New York: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 208.

A History of AC Milan in European Cup Finals. Part Two. 1963, Wembley: Milan 2 Benfica 1

Whilst the 1950s saw AC Milan become one of the giants of Italian football, it was the 1960s that saw them make their impact upon the European scene. In this decade they picked up a comparatively paltry two league titles, compared to four in the 50s, in addition to winning their first Copa Italia in 1967. Yet on the 22^nd May 1963 Milan beat Benfica 2-1 at Wembley to become to first Italian team to win the European Cup. This landmark was achieved by a team which contained names that would become legendary in this history of the club, Jose Altafini, Gianni Rivera, Cesare Maldini and Giovanni Trapattoni. Before the decade was out they would claim a second European Cup and a Cup Winner’s Cup. So why, in this period of continental success, were Milan often bested in Serie A? As we will see, it was less a case of their failings and more a case of their rivals’ strengths.

                                                                                                                          

After a near miss in the 1958 European Cup final, the Rossoneri saw out the 50s by winning the 1959 Scudetto. Due to their miserable 9^th place finish the previous year they did not compete in European competition again until the 1959-60 season. This foray into Europe did not go well, as Milan went out in the first round to a wonderful Barcelona team inspired by Luis Suarez (the 1960 European Footballer of the Year and, until recently, unquestionably the greatest player that Spain have produced) and their Hungarian trio: the incomparable Laszlo Kubala (who scored a hat trick at the Camp Nou), Zoltan Czibor and Sandor Kocsis. Yet if this 7-1 aggregate defeat was a humbling experience, it was no less embarrassing than their next foray into Europe in the 1961-62 season, where they were eliminated from the European Inter-Cities Fairs Cup by Yugoslavian side FK Vojvodina (who would reach the quarter finals of the European Cup in 1967, only to be knocked-out be eventual champions Celtic).

                                                                                                        

Milan’s less frequent appearance in the European Cup throughout the 60s reflected a period where domestic success was scarcer than in the 50s. The team had undergone many changes since the 1958 European Cup final. It was after this defeat that Milan signed Altafini, one of the best strikers to play in Serie A, and, in 1960, the mercurial Rivera made his first appearance for the first team. Between 1960 and 1979 Rivera would make 658 appearances for Milan; only Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta, Mauro Tassotti would make more appearances for the club. To this day Rivera remains Milan’s youngest goal scorer, after finding the net against Juventus on 6^th Nov 1960, aged just 17 years and 80 days. From here he would go on to become Milan’s 3^rd highest scorer of all time, coming behind Nordahl and Andriy Shevchenko, with 164 goals in all competitions. Yet on this same list Altafini can be found just one place behind Rivera. In his spell at the club, between 1959 and 1964, the Brazilian was Milan’s top scorer each year. He would leave the club in 1965, having scored 161 goals in 246 appearances. The team at this time also included Trapottoni, a ruthless man marker who was one of the greatest mediani to play in Serie A, and iconic captain Cesare Maldini. This Milan side first showed what they were capable of when they on the 1962 Scudetto, outscoring their nearest rivals, Inter, by 24 goals. It was on the back of this title win that they would enter, and eventually win, the 1963 European Cup.

Rivera: This charming man

To look solely at Milan’s players in this period would be to leave half of the story untold. On the bench was Nereo Rocco, Milan’s longest serving manager, who managed the club for 459 matches (323 as head coach and 136 as technical director) in his four spells at the club, between 1961 and 1977. An advocate of a robust form of catenaccio, Rocco had success with Triestina and Padova before getting his opportunity at Milan after his predecessor, Gipo Viani, suffered a heart attack following the 1959 title winning season. Viani, who subsequently took an ‘upstairs’ role at the club, claims that it was he who fine-tuned Rocco’s catenaccio, but this seems unlikely given the fact that Rocco had used the system at both Triestina and Padova (combined with Viani’s propensity for spinning a tall tale or two). Contrary to the negative connotations surrounding the word catenaccio, Milan were not an unattractive side to watch under Rocco.[1] They still scored plenty of goals and managed to accommodate the abatino Rivera by employing a mediano to win the ball for him in midfield. The sweeper, Cesare Maldini, was an elegant defender rather than a vicious stopper; his defensive acumen was not mutually exclusive to an ability to play the ball.

Yet, as mentioned, Milan had less domestic success in the 60s. The explaination for this is not particularly difficult to fathom - one does not even have to look beyond the city. In Italy the 1960 belonged to one team: Il Grande Inter. In 1960 Helenio Herrera, Il Mago, joined Internazionale Milano from FC Barcelona. Dispensing with Inter’s star striker Antonio Valentín Angelillo, Herrera set about building one of the greatest sides that Serie A (and indeed the world) has ever seen. In 1961 he went back to his former employers to sign Luis Suarez, who would become the heartbeat of the side. In goal stood the reliable Giuliano Sarti, protected by a backline that included Tarcisio Burgnich and Aristide Guarneri. Orchestrating the team from the back was their outstanding sweeper Armando Picchi, and repeatedly charging down the left was Giacinto Facchetti, arguably the greatest left back of all time and a player who did much to define the position. Suarez’s sublime passing allowed Inter to mitigate their numerical disadvantage in midfield whilst further forward in the team Herrera could call upon Brazillian forward Jair, the enigmatic (read inconsistent) Mario Corso, and Sandro Mazzola, the son of Torino star Valentino Mazzola. Under Herrera Inter quickly equalled Milan’s tally of domestic titles, with wins in 1963, 1965 and 1966, in addition to back to back European Cup wins in 1965 and 1966. Hererra’s management combined ruthless determination to win and tactical genius with new-age sloganism and arcane ritual. Yet his perceived gamesmanship means that there will forever remain a blot against the name of this team. Allegations of match fixing and player doping have never been completely dispelled. That said, despite their undoubted cynicism, they were far from an unlikable team. As with Rocco’s Milan, the catenaccio practiced by Il Grande Inter was not unattractive to watch. Herrera himself was quick to note the importance of committing fullbacks to the attack, highlighting the importance of Facchetti to the team. The statistics support Herrera: in two of the three seasons where Inter won Serie A in the 60s they were also the top scoring team in the league. So whilst Milan were first team in Italy to be noted for achieving big success with catenaccio, it is undoubtedly Inter who were its best known practitioners from this era. Consequently, if there is an argument to suggest the Milan of the 60s was better than the Milan of the 50s, the strength of Inter during the latter period meant that Milan were more often than not second best (or worse). Yet despite Inter’s edge in Italy, it was in Europe that the Rossoneri would match them.

Nereo Rocco: Cup-fiend

Milan’s route to the 1963 European Cup final was marked by a series of demolitions. In the preliminary round they were drawn against Union Luxembourg based (negligibly) in Southern Luxembourg. In the home leg Milan won 8-0, Altafini scoring 5, making this their record win in European competition. The away leg was only marginally less embarrassing for the Luxembourg team: 6-0, a hat trick for Altafini and a record away win (equalled in 1993 when Milan beat Copenhagen by an identical margin in the Champions League). A 4-2 aggregate victory against Ipswich Town was followed by an 8-1 against Galatasaray and a 5-2 versus Dundee F.C., with Altafini notching another hat trick (at home to the Turks) in the process.

In the final Milan met a Benfica side who would by far prove their sternest test of the tournament. The Portuguese had won the previous two European Cups, overcoming Madrid and Barcelona in the respective finals. This Benfica side was an attacking team still marked by a Danubian romanticism, that featured talents such as Eusebio and Mario Coluna. Perhaps this was why Rocco chose to drop hitherto free scoring striker Paolo Barison, instead selecting Gino Pivatelli to pick up Coluna. It may have seemed like the plan was not working in the 18^th minute, when Eusebio gave Benfica the lead, but two Milan goals after half time sealed the Rossoneri’s first European Cup. As if to highlight their importance to the club, both goals were scored by Altafini; both assists came from Rivera. Indeed Altafini was competition’s top scorer with 14 goals. Cesare Maldini lifted the cup at Wembly as Milan’s European legacy began in earnest.

"Mr Maldini's Great Day Out"

There seems to be no question that the Milan side of the 60s was a very strong team. Whether or not they were as great a side as Il Grande Milan is open to debate, but I would argue that their trophy haul was equally impressive. Two league titles and three European trophies is nothing to be scoffed at. As we have seen, it was the emergence of Il Grande Inter who took the sheen of this period for Milan. Even so, this Inter side only won one more major trophy more than Milan, so perhaps we should be cautious not to overemphasise the gulf in class (for surely any team featuring Rivera and Altafini could not be too lacking in this department). Significantly, the catennacio system employed by both Inter and Milan during this period, which was so successful for them both, became something of an orthodoxy for Italian sides – the reign of the libero lasted well into the 80s. Milan's next apperance in a European Cup final, at the end of the decade, would similarly be a cause of tactical innovation - an innovation that would have a irrepresible effect on global football.

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[1] John Foot’s Calcio: A History of Italian Football does well to distinguish catenaccio as a system with catenaccio as an attitude – the former being liberated of the negative connotations of the latter. See pp. 140-142.

Juanma Lillo & The Ear That Is Not An Eye

For someone lauded as one of the more intelligent men in football, it is very difficult to construct a consistent philosophy from the aphorisms Juanma Lillo. Nevertheless, I attempted just this after encountering a recent interview published in The Blizzard where, amongst other painstakingly gnomic statements, he observes that it hard to get players to play as a team in the modern game. This is problematic for Lillo since, for him, the team is the only context in which football is intelligible. He states that there are no individual actions. All actions are bound up in the context of others in a web so complex that simple claims of cause and effect are undermined, such that even ‘if a player gets the ball in his own area, the opposition players all sit down on the turf and he runs the whole length of the pitch, dribbling round them and scores a goal…that’s still not an individual act because if they don’t sit down, he can’t do that. What the other guy does is what imposes upon you this decision or that one. People talk about ‘individual actions’, but there are not individual actions.’ Lillo’s conception of the individual is one of complete pourousness. The self is entirely dissolved in the context of its surroundings. In fact, in such an understanding there is no buffer between football and any other occurrence on the planet. Why did West Ham get relegated from the Premier League? Their poor form? We could just as well blame the weather in China.

It seems to me that the problem with Lillo’s ideas is that he is so focused on the idea of the team that he cannot deal with the individual. I would claim that this because his warped idea of an individualism that has no bearing to relationship. In reacting against the modern idea of the self which he finds so distasteful, Lillo goes too far the other way, retreating into a somewhat bloodless form of monism where there is no room for the individual and everything becomes mechanised. In this sense Lillo’s philosophy can be seen as the purest form of Guardiola’s philosophy. In the aforementioned interview he questions the wisdom of training players specifically to improve their speed or fitness, claiming that you cannot ‘gain strength for football from outside of football.’ So why train your right back to run fast? After all, running fast is not football – it is running. The logical conclusion would be that the only form of training that is worth doing would be playing games of football. Of course this does not make any sense. Adapting training routines to focus on specific things such as making players faster and fitter will benefit the player and, consequently, the team. If this is how Lillo actually manages clubs then perhaps that is why his record as a coach is modest at best.

Tactics with Juanma Lillo

 What we need, then, is a middle ground where the individual and the collective are both given their due. There is no denying that football is a team sport, but it is worth reflecting on what a team is. Let us take it that a team is the eleven men on the pitch at any given time and the substitutes on the bench. Now, there is certainly an understanding close to Lillo’s where a team can be considered as a whole, as a One. This, for example, would allow us to understand the entire team in terms their special presence on the pitch. A team, therefore, would be the space between the player farthest forward and the player farthest back. At different times the extremes of this space take on different significance as the play shifts and players are played onside or offside. Furthermore, it is possible for one team to have several concurrent shapes, once again as the offside rule brings certain players in and out of the play. But as much as a team is a One, it is also a multiple of ones. There are individuals within the team. To ignore these individuals would be disingenuous since they have characteristics that cannot be reduced to the One. We cannot, for instance, pretend that, in the context of a team, the differences between, say, Aaron Lennon and David Beckham on the right of a midfield are negligible. They are clearly different types of player that offer different things to the team, with the effect of this being that the understanding of the team of which they are a part has to change (prosaically, are we dealing with pace up the right or not?). Here we see the opposite of players being abstracted into the team – rather the team is made up of the players. So a team is both One and many. We need the idea of a team as an intelligible One (a count-as-one), but we cannot pretend that each team is not a multiple.

In one sense, then, when we are talking of a team we are really talking about is an aggregate of individuals. Yet at the same time it is true that with a good team dynamic can actually amplify performances. Yet what is amplified is not the performance of the team, since the team is merely a concept. Rather it amplifies the performance of the individuals within the team. One can imagine the scene where just before a game begins the coach instructs his players: ‘Remember, there is no team. Now go out and play as a team!’

This understanding, whereby the individual and the collective are considered as part of a more considered dialectic, is reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 12. Here ‘the body is a unit, though it is made of many parts; and though all of its parts are many, they form one body… And if the ear should say, “Because I am not a eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? ... If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you!” and the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”… If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.’ In other words, a team recognises differences in its individuals insofar as they are all a part of the same unit: they are the same and distinct. There may be no ‘I’ in team, but there might be at least one eye.

Mes Que Un Team

Throughout football there have been great players who suffered precisely because of managers (and journalists) deciding that they cannot be incorporated into teams. This has been particularly pronounced in Italy, where, after Gianni Brera ignited the abatini debate in reference to Rivera, there has been suspicion directed towards certain flair players.[1] An obvious example is the case of Roberto Baggio. It is clear that Baggio, il Divin Codino, was an extraordinary player. Across his career he played for six senior teams and can be listed amongst the few players to have played for Juve, Milan and Inter. Yet nowhere was he more valued than at the smaller, regional clubs at which he played: Fiorentina, Bologna and Brescia. There was a prevailing sense that Baggio’s coaches at the bigger clubs never fully trusted him. As his Milan and Italy teammate Demetrio Albertini noted, Baggio played at a time when second strikers were not as highly valued as they are today. Even if we admit that Baggio’s failure to have an extended period of success was partly his responsibility, it is equally true that the inability of his coaches (including famous names such as Marcello Lippi and Giovanni Trapattoni) to harness his talent represents a major failure on their part.

Of course there was something wonderful about the time Baggio spent at Fiorentina, Bologna and Brescia. At these clubs he was the focus of attention and could display his full talent. Self indulgent, perhaps, but insofar as football is a medium for beauty, these clubs were the perfect canvases upon which Baggio could work his art. Some might argue, then, that if players such as Baggio have to play away from the bigger clubs to display their talent, perhaps this is a price worth paying. I am not so sure. If we are resolved to understand a team as a body, celebrating the difference within its parts whilst at the same time facilitating their working together, then one must respect each part for its respective merits. Ultimately this is the responsibility of the manager. The greatest managers find ways to accommodate the more idiosyncratic players in their teams. We have already noted the presence of Rivera in the Milan side which won multiple domestic and European titles; remaining in Italy we could note the role of Mario Corso in Il Grande Inter or, extending our reach further, the role of Arjen Robben at Bayern Munchen and Chelsea or Laurent Robert at Bobby Robson’s Newcastle United. Great managers find successful ways to accommodate gifted individuals within their teams. Each player is a member of the team as each part is a member of the body, all performing different roles but nevertheless contributing to the whole. The attitude towards the individual advocated by Lillo is destructive, rather than constructive. The effect of adopting such an attitude is evidenced in Baggio’s career. Rather than being incorporated into a working body politic he was regarded as a phantom limb. Baggio could not just be reduced to an abstract collective. He was not an unworkable individual who could not function within a team; he was just an ear that was not an eye.

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[1] The word abatino means young priest. Brera used it to refer to the weakness brought to the side by accommodating Rivera. He saw Rivera as a half-player, whose intermittent brilliance was diminished by his lack of hard work and the need for the team to be ‘built around’ him.