Masterminds and Methods - Catenaccio
No fan wants his team to play defensive football. Every football fan wants his team to play attacking football, entertaining football. But sometimes defensive football wins you games which translate into trophies. Diego Simeone and Jose Mourinho in recent times have played defensive football and won major titles but their style is nothing compared to the Catenaccio. There is no tactical system as notorious as Catenaccio. The word which means "chain" represents Italian football at its most paranoid and negative era. While often criticized for its defensive rigidity, Catenaccio was a tactical masterstroke that led to immense success, proving that solid organization and strategic pragmatism could triumph over pure attacking flair. But how did it evolve and eventually fade? Let's dive into the origins and history of Catenaccio.
Brief Introduction to Catenaccio
Catenaccio was born because the lesser teams wanted ways to beat the better teams but quickly became the basis of European cup winning teams. The system which was evolved from Herbert Chapman's W-M formation, used the libero (sweeper) for the first time. The teams using Catenaccio lined up in a 1-3-3-3 or a 1-4-4-1. The libero was behind the defensive line to intercept and initiate attacks. The midfield was packed with defensive minded players to disrupt the opposition and there were fast forwards to try and hit the opponents on the counter. While often criticized as overly defensive, Catenaccio was not purely negative football. The system depended on rapid transitions from defense to attack. When executed properly it was lethal as the Milan teams showed Europe in the 1960's.
Swiss Beginnings and the birth of the Libero
It all began with a certain man named Karl Rappan. He was capped for Austria in the golden days of Austrian football in the 1930's and moved to Switzerland to become a player-coach at Servette. Rappan believed that Swiss teams could not compete with the other professional teams of Europe. "The Swiss is not a natural footballer, but he is usually sober in his approach to things. He can be persuaded to think ahead and calculate ahead." Rappan said in an interview with the World Soccer magazine in 1962. So Rappan set along to devise a way to that his teams could compensate for the fact that they could not match the other European teams in physical fitness.
His solution "Verrou" or "bolt" was a development of the old 2-3-5 focusing on the defensive side of the game. The two full-backs essentially became central defenders and in theory this left the team with a spare man - The Libero or the Verouller as the Swiss press called him. The system was vaguely similar to the modern day 4-3-3 practiced by Jose Mourinho at Chelsea. But there were problems in the system. By creating a spare man in one part of the pitch, the teams often struggled in the other parts. The system struggled against a W-M but it struggled even more against a classic 2-3-5.
Rappan won two league titles with Servette and a further five with the Grasshoppers but it was his success with the national team that demonstrated the efficiency of the system. Rappan's system was never full understood by people at the time and the coach never really discussed it, keeping a certain mystery around it. It received both praise and criticism. The Libero was considered a way of frustrating the better teams with lesser teams and nothing more. This was until Gipo Viani at Salernitana had his Eureka moment.
Gipo Viani & Nereo Rocco: The Architects of Italian Catenaccio
There are many theories on who
developed Catenaccio in Italy and how it was developed but Viani's claim to be
the architect seems to be the strongest. He was the first manager to deploy the
system on a regular basis and being successful. Viani looked at his team at
Salernitana and decided that the best way to stop the opposition was to
exercise "the right of the weak".
One of his half-backs Alberto Piccinni dropped to mark the centre forward and the central defender of his three center backs would drop back as the sweeper. He had his team sit deep and exposing the opponent on the counter. His thinking behind the innovation was no different than Herbert Chapman's in the early 1900's. It became to be known as Vianema. The system helped them to promotion in 1947 but they failed to win an away game in the Serie A and were relegated back. However Viani's success made Catenaccio fashionable among the smaller teams. But the system evolved into something that the top teams use because of a man named Nereo Rocco.
Inter went on to become the most
famous practicers of Catenaccio but it was the red side of Milan that first
showed how potent it could be. There was a comcial figure in the Milan dugout -
Nereo Rocco. Rocco exerted total domination on his players, so much that Gigi
Meroni at Torino pretended his girlfriend was his sister to not face the wrath
of Rocco. Gipo Viani had won the scudetto at Milan in 1959 but suffered a heart
attack. Milan decided his successor would be Rocco.
Rocco's Catenaccio however, from
far from the negative style that Viani had developed.
Helenio Herrera – The Master of Catenaccio
Helenio Herrera was nicknamed ‘Le Sorcier’ which means “the wizard” when he was managing amateur side Puteaux during the Second World War. Herrera hated the title. He always said that the word “wizard” did not belong to football. Football is related to the words “Passion” and “Strength,” he said. He did not believe in luck in football. “I don't believe in good luck. When someone has won so much in twenty years, how can it be good luck?” he used to say. He believed everything was controllable and everything could be improved. He was the first modern manager in that regard. Helenio Herrera wasn’t just a fine tactician, he was a perfectionist. And the Inter team he built was as close to perfection as it comes.
Herrera was pretty successful at Barcelona. They won two successive leagues in 1959 and 1960, scoring more than 80 league goals in both the seasons, but he was sacked after a European Cup semi-final loss to Real Madrid. Inter president Angelo Moratti had sacked 12 managers in 5 years, but Herrera was insistent that he would bring success to the club. He demanded a world-record 35,000 Euros salary, saying to Moratti, “Sometimes an expensive one can be a cheap one, a cheap one very expensive.” It’s safe to say Moratti’s decision of appointing Herrera didn’t prove wrong.
The team Herrera built was full of phenomenons. Armando Picchi as the sweeper was one of the best passers in world football. Giacinto Facchetti at left back used to bomb forward playing like a modern wing back. Gianfranco Bedin used to sit in front of the defence breaking up attacks and winning the ball. Beside him was Ballon D'Or winner Luiz Suarez, who is maybe one of the best long range passers football has ever seen. Mazzola and Corso further forward were gifted players who ensured that the team created chances and scored goals. Herrera built Catenaccio reliant on it's offensive principals. The roles of players like Facchetti were never seen in football before Herrera implemented it. But the defensive principals were not the reason why many managers like Bill Shankly hated it. The dark theories about Herrera's team concerned them.
Herrera was a great psychologist who knew how to extract the maximum from his players. But he was also a decent pharmacologist. Ferruccio Mazzola, the younger brother of the forward for Inter, wrote in his autobiography," Herrera used to experiment drugs on the reserves before providing them to the first team. Some of us would eventually spit them out. Then Herrera decided to dilute them in our coffee.". The allegations were denied of course, but old football is full of mysteries that we will never get to know about. There were also allegations that Herrera used to bribe referees and manipulate games. One of the referees Ortiz De Mendibil was even suspended in 1974 on match-fixing charges. But his Inter team was the perfect blend of tactics, chaos and psychology. He did anything required to win.
The Death of Catenaccio and it's 'Negativity'
Helenio Herrera won the Italian titles in 1963,1965 and 1966 and won two European cups in 1964 and 1965. But it was also a European Cup which started Catenaccio's death in modern football. Jock Stein's Celtic beat them in the 1967 European Cup final but the way it affected the Inter players was brutal. Herrera did not allow the players to see a single human being three days before their game. He was always controlling his player's lifes. It reached a point where it could not become more negative. He had created a monster and it ended up turning on him.
Four Inter players vomited before the game because of the tension. Inter took the lead but after that Celtic bombarded them with attack after attack. The keeper Giuliano Sarti's heroics were the only reason Inter were in the lead but once the equaliser came it was over. Picchi is even said to have said to Sarti to let a goal in as "they will score sooner or later". Chalmers hit the winner for Celtic making them the first British European champions and bringing an end to Catenaccio's dominance in European football.
Herrera blamed his defenders on the loss and the players started turning on him. With morale and confidence shot, Inter finished fifth in 1968, and Herrera left to join Roma. Catenaccio's invincibility also left with Herrera as Celtic had proved that attacking positive football was the future.
Although Catenaccio may have faded into history but it's impact on the development of football tactics endures. It symbolised a time when order, structure, and psychological combat prevailed over disorder and flamboyance. The teachings of Catenaccio—its emphasis on space, control, and tactical organization—remain relevant in today's techniques, even though the game increasingly favours attacking philosophy, strong pressing, and fluid transitions. From Herrera's La Grande Inter to Rappan's Verrou, Catenaccio was always about maximising strengths and minimising weaknesses rather than just defence. Even though its heyday is ended, it continues to be one of football's most intriguing and contentious eras, serving as a reminder that there are multiple paths to success.
By Parth Gokhale
Very insightful!
ReplyDelete