Showing posts with label Arena Civica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arena Civica. Show all posts

19 December 2016

Gianni Brera - football journalist

Outspoken writer who embellished Italian language



Football journalist Gianni Brera
Football journalist Gianni Brera
Italy's football world lost one of its most influential personalities on this day in 1992 when a car crash near the town of Codogno in Lombardy claimed the life of the journalist Gianni Brera.

Brera, who was 73, had enjoyed a long and often controversial career in which his writing was famous not only for its literary quality but for his outspoken views.

He could be savage in his criticisms of players and allowed reputations to count for nothing.  His long-running feud with Gianni Rivera, the AC Milan midfielder regarded by many as one of Italian football's all-time greats, in some ways defined his career.

Yet the positions he occupied in Italian football journalism gained him enormous respect.  He rose to be editor-in-chief of La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's biggest sports newspaper, before he was 30 and went on to write for Il Giorno, Il Giornale and La Repubblica among the country's heavyweight news dailies.

The intellectual La Repubblica for many years considered sport to be too trivial to be worthy of coverage, an attitude that persisted even through the 1970s. But the style and innovative brilliance of Brera's writing was a major factor in persuading them to drop their stance.

Famously, Brera introduced new words to the Italian language in his efforts to convey to his readers the things that he saw on the field in front of him and pass on his own interpretation of the game.

AC Milan star Gianni Rivera had a long-running feud with Brera
AC Milan star Gianni Rivera had a
long-running feud with Brera
For example, it was Brera who coined the term libero for the player designated as "sweeper" in the catenaccio defensive formation that dominated Italian football in the 1950s and 60s, and deemed that the players who could no longer be described as half-backs or inside forwards as the game moved away from the traditional 2-3-5 formation would be known in future as centrocampisti - midfielders.

Brera would also invent nicknames for players to amuse his readers.  He dubbed Rivera Abatino - the "little abbot" - and hailed the old-fashioned centre forward Luigi 'Gigi' Riva as Rombo di tuono - the "rumble of thunder".

He was a lifelong advocate of the ultra-defensive tactics characterised by the catenaccio system, and part of his antipathy towards Rivera stemmed from his belief that creative talents such as his were luxuries the game could do without.

Most of Brera's heroes were defenders and where many writers would enthuse about goals scored as moments of beauty in a match, Brera tended to see them as aberrations, the unwanted consequence of flawed defending.  His idea of perfection was a match in which the forwards were players of a manly vigour that constantly tested the defenders but which ultimately ended 0-0.

His spats with other journalists were also legend, most notably with the Neapolitan writer Gino Palumbo, a proponent of attacking play and therefore philosophically at odds with Brera.  The two once engaged in a punch-up in the press box before a match in Brescia.

The Arena Civica in Milan was renamed Arena Gianni Brera
The Arena Civica in Milan was renamed Arena Gianni Brera
At the same time, though, he enjoyed playing host to fellow journalists, players and coaches at his 'Thursday club' at a restaurant in central Milan, where he lived for much of his working life.

To avoid accusations of bias in debates about Milan's rival clubs, Brera always claimed he was a supporter of Genoa, Italy's oldest football club.

Born in 1919 in the village of San Zenone al Po, which sits on the banks of the River Po around 25km south-east of Pavia, Brera was the son of a tailor and barber, but his humble stock belied a considerable intellect, which he demonstrated in obtaining a degree in political sciences from the University of Pavia while simultaneously serving with a parachute division of the Italian army.

He regarded himself as Padanian rather than Italian and was vehemently anti-Fascist, fighting on the side of the Italian resistance towards the end of the Second World War, although proudly proclaiming later that he never fired a shot at a fellow human being.

After his death, Milan's monumental Arena Civica, the stadium conceived as the city's Colosseum by Napoleon I in the early 19th century, was renamed Arena Gianni Brera.

The Castello Visconteo is an attraction for visitors to Pavia
The Castello Visconteo is an attraction for visitors to Pavia
Travel tip:

The elegant Lombardy city of Pavia is renowned for its university, which is regarded as one of the best in Italy and numbers among its alumni the explorer Christopher Columbus and the poet and revolutionary Ugo Foscolo.  Among its important historic buildings are the well preserved 14th century Castello Visconteo, a Duomo dating back to the 15th century and the impressive Lombard-Romanesque church of San Michele Maggiore, which was completed in 1155.

Travel tip:

The Arena Gianni Brera in Milan, formerly known as the Arena Civica, can be found in the Parco Sempione behind the Castello Sforzesco. It is one of Milan's main examples of neoclassical architecture, an elliptical amphitheatre commissioned by Napoleon soon after he became King of Italy in 1805. At one time the home of the Milan football club Internazionale, it is nowadays a venue for international athletics and rugby union as well as being the home of Milan's third football team, Brera Calcio FC.

More reading:







21 August 2016

Giuseppe Meazza - Italy's first superstar

Inter striker who gave his name to the San Siro stadium


Giuseppe Meazza's matinée idol looks led him to be likened to Rudolph Valentino
Giuseppe Meazza's matinée idol looks
led him to be likened to Rudolph Valentino

Italian football's first superstar, the prolific goalscorer Giuseppe Meazza, died on this day in 1969, two days before what would have been his 69th birthday.

Most biographical accounts of his life say Meazza was staying at his holiday villa in Rapallo, on the coast of Liguria, when he passed away but John Foot, the Italian football historian, says he died in Monza, much closer to his home city of Milan.

Meazza, who was equally effective playing as a conventional centre forward or as a number 10, spent much of his career with Internazionale, the Milan club for whom he scored a staggering 243 league goals in 365 appearances.

In the later stages of his career he left Inter after suffering a serious injury, initially joining arch rivals AC Milan.  A year after his death, the civic authorities in Milan announced that the stadium shared by the two clubs in the San Siro district of the city would be renamed Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in his honour.

Born in the Porta Vittoria area of Milan, not far from the centre, Meazza had a tough upbringing.  His father was killed in the First World War when Giuseppe was only seven.  He was a rather sickly child and was sent to an 'open-air' school in the city - one of a number that sprang up across Europe to combat the spread of tuberculosis - in the hope his health would improve.

Like most young boys, he played football games in the street and it is said he developed his skills by playing barefoot. His mother needed him to help on the family fruit and vegetable stall and hid his shoes in the hope he would not be able to play. He was 12 before he was allowed to join an organised team.

Giuseppe Meazza made his Inter debut as a 17-year-old
Giuseppe Meazza made his Inter debut
as a 17-year-old 
His talent was brought to the attention of AC Milan when he was 13 but they rejected him as too skinny.  However, an Inter scout saw him juggling a rag ball in the street near his home and after a trial he was quickly signed up, the club deciding if they fed him well he would grow stronger.

Their faith paid off.  After scoring twice on his debut as a 17-year-old, Meazza went on to be Inter's leading scorer season after season.

Inevitably he was selected for Italy's national team and established himself as a key member of the side that won two World Cups under manager Vittorio Pozzo in 1934 and 1938, the second time as captain. In 53 appearances for the Azzurri, he scored 33 times.   He was a natural goalscorer, particularly when faced with the opposition goalkeeper one-on-one, when he would almost always come out on top.

Although stocky and somewhat short, he was blessed with good looks and found himself adopted as a poster boy for Mussolini's Fascists, who saw him as a symbol of manliness and athleticism.  His early nickname 'il Balilla' was a reference to Mussolini's youth movement.

He made the most of his fame, which won him advertising contracts for toothpaste and the brilliantine he applied liberally to his hair, which gave him something of a Rudolph Valentino look.  He had an apartment in the centre of Milan not far from Inter's former home at the Arena Civica, drove expensive sports cars and was never short of female company.

He left Inter after suffering a blood clot in his left leg in the 1938-39 season, after which he was never the same player, although he managed to extend his career by another seven years, playing for AC Milan, Juventus, Varese and Atalanta before returning to Inter for one final season.

Meazza's tomb at the Monumental Cemetery in Milan
Meazza's tomb at the Monumental Cemetery in Milan
On retirement, he starred as himself in a movie and then went into coaching.  He was not so successful in this role as he had been as a player but did oversee the development of some fine youth players at Inter, including Sandro Mazzola, who also played number 10 for Italy, and the defender Giacinto Facchetti.

No stranger to Milan's nightlife, he did not help his health in retirement by smoking heavily.  He remained fêted wherever he went but tired of celebrity towards the end of his life, when he wanted his declining health to be kept secret and requested shortly before he died that his funeral should be a small, private affair and that there should even be no headstone.

He was buried at the Monumental Cemetery in Milan, where his grave is marked, but simply with his name and his dates.

Travel tip:

Porta Vittoria has a special significance in Italian history.  Formerly known as Porta Tosa, the eastern gate in the old Spanish Walls of Milan, it was the first strategic position to be taken by the Milanese rebels during the so-called Five Days of Milan (Cinque Giornate di Milano) in 1848, during the First Italian War of Independence, in which the Austrians were driven out of the city.  The gate was demolished in the late 19th century and an obelisk erected in its place in what is now the Piazza Cinque Giornate.

The Castello sul Mare at Rapallo
The Castello sul Mare at Rapallo
Travel tip:

Rapallo, where Meazza spent his holidays, is a resort on the Ligurian coast between Chiavari and the jet-set haunt of Portofino.  It has a pretty harbour and lush hillsides dotted with villas rise from the sea.  Also notable, right on the very seafront, is the Castello sul Mare - the castle on the sea - built in 1551 to counter frequent pirate attacks.

More reading:


Internazionale - how the club began in 1908

Ulisse Stacchini - the man who built the original San Siro



(Castello sul Mare picture by RegentsPark CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Meazza's tomb picture by batrace CC BY-SA 2.0)

Home