Vittorio Pozzo - double World Cup winner

Manager led Azzurri to victory in 1934 and 1938

Vittorio Pozzo is Italy's most
successful manager

Vittorio Pozzo, the most successful manager in the history of Italy's national football team, was born on this day in 1886 in Turin.

Under Pozzo's guidance, the Azzurri won the FIFA World Cups of 1934 and 1938 as well as the Olympic football tournament in 1936. He also led them to the Central European International Cup, the forerunner of the European championships, in 1931 and 1935. No other coach in football history has won the World Cup twice.

Pozzo managed some outstanding players, such as Internazionale's Giuseppe Meazza and the Juventus defender Pietro Rava, but his reputation was tarnished by the success of his team coinciding with the Fascist regime's tight grip on power. Italy's success on the football field was exploited ruthlessly as a propaganda vehicle.

While not a Fascist himself, Pozzo upset many opponents of Mussolini across Europe at the 1938 World Cup in France when his players gave the so-called 'Roman' salute - the extended right-arm salute adopted by the Fascists - during the playing of the Italian anthem.

At Italy's opening match against Norway, the salute was greeted with boos and hisses, generated by Italian supporters in the crowd who had fled their home country to escape Fascism.  Some of the Italian players dropped their arms but Pozzo ordered them to resume the salute, which further antagonised the crowd.

Pozzo holds aloft the Jules Rimet Trophy surrounded by
the Italian team after their 1934 triumph on home soil

Afterwards, Pozzo said he insisted on the salute only out of respect for protocol, claiming that neither he nor his players had given consideration to political issues.  He explained that he gave the order to resume the salute because he did not want his players to be cowed by intimidation, fearing their confidence would suffer.

Nonetheless, the incident cast a shadow over the remainder of his career and some commentators feel the appreciation of his achievements was diminished as a result.

Pozzo was born in Turin, where family had moved from the small town of Ponderano in the province of Biella, some 75km (47 miles) north-west of the city in the foothills of the Alps.

He attended the Liceo Cavour, where he studied the classics and languages.  He became proficient in English, French and German, in which he expanded his knowledge by studying in England, France and Switzerland.

At the same time, Pozzo took the opportunity to immerse himself in football, for which he had a passion.  While in Manchester, he became friends with two prominent players, the Manchester United half-back, Charlie Roberts, and the Derby County forward, Steve Bloomer.

The 1934 World Cup final took place in the Stadio Nazionale
del PNF - the national stadium of the Fascist party

In Switzerland he played as a professional, spending the 1905-06 season with Grasshoppers of Zurich, and on returning to Italy was one of the founding members of FC Torino.  He retired as a player in 1911 but stayed at the club as technical director, while simultaneously pursuing a business career as a manager with the tyre manufacturer Pirelli.

He became involved with the national team for the first time in 1912, when an Italian team - the first in a competitive event - went to the Olympics in Stockholm, but he resigned after defeat to Finland in the first round.  He returned to Pirelli before joining the Alpini - the mountain warfare corps of the Italian army - at the outbreak of the First World War.

He was handed the reins of the national team for a second time in 1921.  He stepped down again in 1924 following a quarter-final defeat to Switzerland at the Olympics in Paris, although his decision was influenced by the need to care for his wife, who was terminally ill.

Appointed as national team coach for a third time in 1929, he had almost immediate success, winning the Central European International Cup, defeating Hungary 5-0 in the final.

Giuseppe Meazza of Internazionale was
one of Pozzo's key players

The key to Pozzo's winning formula was his clever use of tactics. Most teams still favoured the so-called Cambridge Pyramid formation, consisting of five forwards, three half-backs and just two out-and-out defenders.  Teams were top-heavy with attacking players because the basic philosophy of the game was simply to score more goals than the opposition, with little attention paid to defending.

Pozzo saw things differently.  His military experiences had taught him that even when on the attack it was an unwise general who would leave his base undefended.  Under what he called simply Il Metodo - the Method - he tweaked the 2-3-5 formation, retaining the centre forward and the wingers but pulling the two inside forwards back into midfield, where the half-backs served a dual purpose, supporting the attacking players but dropping back to defend when the opposing team was in possession.

A pragmatist who was always more concerned with winning than entertaining the crowd with expansive football, he was never afraid to leave a player out if his abilities did not suit his tactics. Twice he dropped the team captain, leaving out Adolfo Baloncieri, the Torino star who was country's highest scoring midfield player, in 1930 and, on the eve of 1934 finals, of which Italy were hosts, the Juventus defender Umberto Caligaris.

Thus Pozzo, who became known as il Vecchio Maestro - the Old Master - achieved unprecedented and - so far - unrepeated success.

Pozzo's 2-3-2-3 formation was revolutionary
in terms of football tactics

He continued as national manager until the London Olympics of 1948, his last match ending in a 5-3 defeat to Denmark in the quarter-finals. His Azzurri record was 64 wins, 17 draws and 16 defeats.

After declaring his career in management was over, he became a journalist with the Turin newspaper La Stampa, for whom he reported the 1950 World Cup finals.

He returned to his roots in Ponderano on retirement and died there in 1968 at the age of 82, a few months after watching Italy win the 1968 European championships.

Even after his death, some Italians felt his two World Cup wins were devalued by the association with Mussolini's regime. In the 1990s, he was posthumously exonerated, at least in part, when evidence came to light that he had secretly fought with the Italian anti-Fascist resistance during the Second World War.

Biella's Romanesque baptistry in Piazza Duomo

Travel tip:

The village of Ponderano sits just outside Biella, an attractive town in the sub-Alpine area of northern Piedmont. Biella is famed for Menabrea beer, for its production of wool and cashmere products and as a centre for hiking and mountain biking holidays.  The Fila sportswear company was founded in Biella in 1911. The town's historic centre is notable for a Romanesque baptistry and the Renaissance church and convent of San Sebastian.  Ponderano has staged an annual youth football tournament, one of the most prestigious in Italy, in Pozzo's honour every year since his death.

Piazza San Carlo is a typically elegant square
in the beautiful city centre of Turin

Travel tip:

Turin made its name as Italy’s manufacturing powerhouse, spearheaded by the car giant Fiat, although the city itself has elegant echoes of Paris in the tree-lined boulevards put in place during its time as capital of the Kingdom of Savoy. However, the city's economy suffered badly in the face of global competition in the 1980s, when more than 100,000 workers lost their jobs. Modern Turin is doing its best to regenerate. Former industrial sites such as Parco Dora, once a factory district where Fiat, Michelin and carpet manufacturer Paracchi were big employers, have been transformed into public leisure venues with modern facilities for sport and the infrastructure to host major open-air concerts.

Search Tripadvisor for hotels in Turin

More reading:

Giuseppe Meazza - Italy's first superstar

How Marcello Lippi led Italy to 2006 World Cup glory

Paolo Rossi's hat-trick in World Cup classic

Also on this day:

1603: The birth of the Sicilian painter Pietro Novelli

1939: Pius XII elected wartime pope

(Picture credit: Baptistry by Alessandro Vecchi via Wikimedia Commons)


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Angelo Mangiarotti - architect and designer

Iconic glass church among legacy to city of Milan 

Angelo Mangiarotti, pictured at a conference in 2007

Angelo Mangiarotti, regarded by his peers as one of the greats of modern Italian architecture and design, was born on this day in 1921 in Milan.

Many notable examples of his work in urban design can be found in his home city, including the Repubblica and Venezia underground stations, the iconic glass church of Nostra Signora della Misericordia in the Baranzate suburb and several unique residential properties, including the distinctive Casa a tre cilindri - composed of a trio of cylindrical blocks - in Via Gavirate in the San Siro district of the city.

He also worked extensively in furniture design with major companies such as Vistosi, Fontana Arte, Danese, Artemide, Skipper and the kitchen producer Snaidero.

Inside the glass Chiesa di Nostra Signora della Misericordia

Mangiarotti graduated from the Architecture School of the Politecnico di Milano in 1948. He moved to the United States in 1953 and worked in Chicago as a visiting professor for the Illinois Institute of Technology. While in Illinois, he met internationally renowned architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Konrad Wachsmann, all of whom were substantial influences.

He returned to Italy in 1950 and opened his own architectural firm in Milan with fellow architect Bruno Morassutti, a partnership which was active until 1960.

It was with Morasutti and another Milan-based designer and engineer, Aldo Favini, that Mangiarotti collaborated on the Chiesa di Nostra Signora della Misericordia, which signalled a massive change in the design features and construction techniques of Italian churches.

The church, in the Baranzate suburb to the north-west of Milan, was constructed of concrete, steel and glass - chosen as the materials that fuelled the rebirth of Italy after the devastation of the Second World War.

The Case a tre cilindri in the San Siro district of Milan

Mangiarotti's original designs helped create a timeless building that has recently been restored and continues to be an impressive example of modern, progressive design even 60 years after its original construction.

The church is very near the Fiera Milano metro station, which was Mangiarotti's last architectural project before his death in 2012.

Mangiarotti's designs for furniture, lighting, decorative objects, ceramics and glassware remain highly collectible and sell for high prices.  He also created a famous collection of Murano glass Giogali Lighting produced by Vistosi.

His partnership with Rino Snaidero, which began in 1960, helped establish Snaidero's position as a leader in kitchen design.

Mangiarotti designed the Cruscotto kitchen and Sistema lines for Snaidero, both of which were notable for the exceptionally refined materials used.  The Cruscotto design was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The distinctive Snaidero headquarters building

The relationship between Snaidero and Mangiarotti reached its peak when the architect was given the job of designing the new building to house Snaidero's offices and central headquarters in Majano in the province of Udine, for which he created a mushroom-shaped main building with a fibreglass facade secured to a reinforced concrete structure, supported by four columns.

It had rounded corners and slightly protruding elliptical windows reminiscent of a ship or an aeroplane.

Mangiarotti, who died in 2012 aged 91, passed on his ideas as a lecturer at universities and technical institutes in Venice, Palermo, Florence and Milan in Italy, as well as Lausanne in Switzerland, Hawaii and Adelaide, Australia.   His work won numerous awards.

Travel tip:

The San Siro district of Milan originated as a small settlement in the 19th century in the area now known as Piazzale Lotto. The area developed in the 20th century and has since become a very diverse district, with a mix of green space and congested residential neighbourhoods, combining villas and apartment blocks serving different income groups, and a concentration of sports facilities, most notably the Giuseppe Meazza football stadium, home of AC Milan and Internazionale, the Milanese hippodrome horse racing track and the Palasport di San Siro arena, which is mainly used for basketball and volleyball.

Milan hotels from Booking.com

The Piazza della Libertà in Udine

Travel tip:

Majano, the base of the Snaidero company headquarters that Mangiarotti designed, is a short distance from the city of Udine, an attractive and wealthy provincial city which is the gastronomic capital of Friuli. Udine's most attractive area lies within the medieval centre, which has Venetian, Greek and Roman influences. The main square, Piazza della Libertà, features the town hall, the Loggia del Lionello, built in 1448–1457 in the Venetian-Gothic style, and a clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio, which is similar to the clock tower in Piazza San Marco - St Mark's Square - in Venice.


More reading:

Ulisse Stacchini, designer of two famous Milan landmarks

How Marco Zanuso's ideas put Italy at the forefront of contemporary design

Unconventional motorway church put Giovanni Michelucci on the map

Also on this day:

1815: Napoleon escapes from Elba

1943: The birth of Oscar-winning set designer Dante Ferretti

Selected books:

Angelo Mangiarotti: The Tectonics of Assembly

(Picture credits: Casa di tre cilindri and Chiesa di Nostra Signora della Misericordia by Arbalete via Wikiemedia Commons)

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Roberto Baggio - football icon

Azzurri star regarded as Italy's greatest player

Roberto Baggio pictured after his world
record transfer to Juventus

The footballer Roberto Baggio, regarded by fans in Italy and around the world as one of the game's greatest players, was born on this day in 1967 in Caldogno, a small town situated about 10km (6 miles) north of Vicenza in the Veneto.

Baggio's career spanned 22 years, most of them spent at the highest level, with Fiorentina, Juventus, Bologna, both Milan clubs and, finally, Brescia, winning the Serie A title twice, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup.  He played in three World Cups - in 1990, 1994 and 1998 - and achieved the unique distinction among Italian players of scoring at all three.

He scored 318 goals all told, the first Italian for 50 years to top 300 in his career.  Yet he spent almost the whole of his active playing days battling against injury.  Over the course of his career, he had six knee operations, four on his right knee and two on the left, and often could play only with the help of painkillers.

His fans believe that without his injuries, Baggio would have been placed in the same bracket as Pele, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi as the best players in history.  Italy's most famous football journalist, the late Gianni Brera, said Baggio was the greatest Italian player he ever saw, better than both Giuseppe Meazza and Gianni Rivera.

Baggio prepares to take his fateful
penalty at the 1994 World Cup

Those supporters held him in such reverence they gave him the nickname il Divin' Codino - the Divine Ponytail - on account of the hairstyle he wore for most of his career, of his conversion to Buddhism, and because to them he was a football god.

Baggio's career was almost finished before it had really begun when he suffered his first serious knee injury at the age of 18, playing for his first club, Lanerossi Vicenza, in Serie B.

He barely played for the next two years and required extensive surgery.  The injury came two days before he was due to finalise his transfer to Serie A club Fiorentina and several doctors predicted he would not play again, thanks to the damage done to the anterior cruciate ligaments and the meniscus of his right knee.

Yet Fiorentina stuck by him, funded the cost of two operations and were ultimately rewarded with performances of the exquisite brilliance that defined his career and identified him as the complete player, a creative midfielder who could set up a goal for a teammate with the perfect pass, but also a dribbler with the guile and trickery of the greatest wingers and a finisher as deadly as the finest strikers.

In Italy he was categorised as a fantasista, the kind of player every coach dreams of if he has any romance in his veins, the kind of player capable, to use a description Italians would understand, of "inventing the game" with a moment of sublime and unpredictable skill.

When he moved to Juventus in 1990, the £8 million fee made him at the time the most expensive footballer in the world.

Baggio at the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy,
where he announced himself as a star

It is hardly any wonder that his supporters despair of the fact that he is remembered all too often for the moment in his career when it all went wrong, when he missed his penalty in the shoot-out at the end of the 1994 World Cup final in the United States, handing the trophy to Brazil.  It was one of only eight penalties Baggio failed to convert from a total of 79 in his career.

Yet the picture of Baggio, head bowed, suddenly lost and alone among the 95,000 people present at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, became the image of the tournament, symbolic of an heroic failure.  Baggio had dragged his nation to the final almost singlehandedly by scoring five of their six goals in the knock-out stages. He was, as usual, defying injury - playing in the final with painkilling injections and a heavily strapped thigh after suffering a hamstring tear - yet at the critical moment fate turned against him and his kick went over the bar.

For all the strength of his faith - and he credits Buddhism with helping him through his darkest moments - Baggio confessed that the penalty miss haunted him for many years afterwards, because he had not been able to deliver the dream for his teammates but also because it felt wrong that he would be remembered for something negative.  In fact, by its very longevity, his career had been a triumph against the odds, given the bleak prognosis he was given at only 18 years old.

His fans prefer to remember a seemingly endless list of brilliant goals and spend many hours debating which might be called the best, given that he scored so many of all types, from superbly placed free kicks and perfectly executed volleys to delicate lobs and wonderful mazy dribbles.

Robert Baggio during a recent television
documentary reflecting on his career

The most famous goals, inevitably, are those he scored for Italy, such as the one with which he announced himself on the world stage against Czechoslovakia in Rome in the 1990 World Cup finals in his home country, a run from the half-way line full of feints, dips and swerves, capped with a clinical finish.

Others prefer the two he scored against Bulgaria in a one-man show in the semi-final in 1994 at the Giants Stadium in New York.

His own favourites include a perfect lob from the edge of the penalty area towards the end of his career, playing for Brescia against Atalanta in Serie A.

Although born into a large Catholic family, Baggio became a Buddhist on New Year's Day 1988, his conversion a response to the despair and pain he endured during his long period of injury while with Fiorentina.  He prays and meditates daily and claims the religion, to which he was introduced by a friend, made him see life as a challenge to his inner strength.

In 1989, he married Andreina, the daughter of a neighbour in Caldogno he had known since he was 15. They have three children, a daughter, Valentina, and two sons, Mattia and Leonardo, the latter named after one of his heroes, Leonardo da Vinci.

He has a home in Argentina, where he is a supporter of the Boca Juniors club from the Italian neighbourhood of La Boca in Buenos Aires, and often visits Japan through his Buddhist links.

Since finishing his playing career he has spent some time coaching with the Italian Federation and a lot of time involved with charity work, raising money for research into motor neurone disease (also known as ALS) and on behalf of the United Nations, for whom he was active in raising money to fund hospitals, generate help for the victims of the Haiti earthquake, and to tackle bird flu.  His support for the Burmese pro-democracy movement and its imprisoned leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, contributed to Baggio being named 2010 Man of Peace by the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

The Basilica Palladiana in the centre of Vicenza

Travel tip:

Vicenza is always associated with Andrea Palladio, the city's most famous resident, and no visit should miss out the Teatro Olimpico, which he wanted to create as a Roman theatre inside a medieval building and which was completed, after his death, by Vincenzo Scamozzi, the designer responsible for stage sets giving the illusion of three dimensions.  The city is notable too, of course, for its rich collection of Palladian villas, as well as churches containing paintings by Giovanni Bellini and Paolo Veronese among others.  Away from art and architecture, Vicenza is a city with a wealth of fine restaurants and chic bars and comes to life from about 6pm, with bars serving the traditional aperitivi - vast, free buffets from which customers buying a drink can help themselves at the start of an evening on the town, or simply on the way home from work.

Hotels in Vicenza from Expedia

Travel tip:

Although Brescia, where Roberto Baggio ended his career, is a wealthy city thanks in the most part to its industrial past, there are sights worth seeing for travellers not put off by the somewhat scruffy streets and downmarket shops around the railway station.  The ruins of a Roman forum can be found at Tempio Capitolino, there are two cathedrals, one 150 years old, the other dating back to pre-Renaissance times, and the castle, which holds a museum of the Risorgimento, has its origins in pre-Roman times and has been fortified a number of times, most notably by the Venetians in the 16th century.

Hotels in Brescia from Hotels.com

More reading:

Arrigo Sacchi - coach who steered Italy to the 1994 World Cup final

How Azeglio Vicini's bid to win the World Cup for Italy on home soil ended in heartbreak

When Marco Tardelli's scream became the symbol of Italy's 1982 World Cup triumph

Also on this day:

1455: The death of early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico

1564: The genius Michelangelo dies in Rome

1983: The birth of tennis star Roberta Vinci


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Beppe Severgnini - journalist and author

Books observing national mores have been best sellers

Journalist Beppe Severgnini: respected commentator
and witty observer of his fellow human beings

The author and journalist Giuseppe Severgnini was born on this day in 1956 in Crema in northern Italy.

Better known as Beppe Severgnini, he is a respected commentator on politics and social affairs, about which he has written for some of the most influential journals and newspapers in Italy and the wider world.

Severgnini is equally well known for his humorous writing, in particular his gently satirical observations of the English and the Americans as well as Italians, about whom he has written many books.

His biggest selling titles include An Italian in America, which has also been published as Hello America. He has also enjoyed success with La Bella Figura: An Insider's Guide to the Italian Mind, Mamma Mia! Berlusconi's Italy Explained for Posterity and Friends Abroad, and An Italian in Britain.

Severgnini is currently a columnist for Corriere della Sera in Italy and the International New York Times in the United States.  A former correspondent for the British journal The Economist, he writes in both Italian and English, having spent a number of years living in London, Washington and New York.

The son of a notary in Crema, Severgnini graduated in law at the University of Pavia.  For a brief period he worked at the European Community headquarters in Brussels before beginning his career in journalism at the age of 27, when he joined the Milan daily newspaper Il Giornale, headed by veteran Italian journalist Indro Montanelli.

It was soon evident he was a talented writer and he became the paper's London correspondent.  Subsequently, during the years of the fall of communism, he became a special correspondent in Eastern Europe, Russia and China.

Beppe Severgnini's books have been bestsellers in
Italy, Great Britain and the United States

When Montanelli set up a new venture, La Voce, Severgnini became its Washington correspondent in 1994 before returning to Italy the following year and beginning his long association with Corriere della Sera, for whom as well as writing opinion pieces he moderates a popular forum, simply called 'Italians', originally aimed at Italian expatriates, which has become one of the most read regular features of the newspaper's website.

Severgnini was Italian correspondent for The Economist between 1996 and 2003 and still writes for the magazine from time to time.  He has also contributed to the Sunday Times and The Financial Times in the UK and occasionally writes about football for Gazzetta dello Sport.

Away from newspapers and books, he has taught at the Walter Tobagi graduate School of Journalism at the University of Milan, been writer in residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a visiting fellow at Ca’ Foscari Venezia. 

One of his books, Signori, si cambia: In viaggio sui treni della vita (All Change: Travelling on the Train of Life), has been turned into a play, Life is a Journey, in which he also stars.

The Piazza del Duomo in Severgnini's home
town of Crema in Lombardy

He presents a television show on RAI TRE entitled The Grass is Greener, which compares Italy with other European countries and America.

He was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001 and a Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2011.

A keen supporter of Internazionale and the owner of a 1954 Vespa motor scooter, Severgnini lives near Milan with his wife and their son Antonio.

Travel tip:

The small city of Crema, which sits on the banks of the Serio river about 50km east of Milan, has an attractive historic centre built around the Piazza del Duomo.  Apart from the cathedral itself, which has a tall bell tower completed in 1604, the area includes the Santa Maria della Croce basilica, built around a 35km high circular central structure, the Palazzo Pretorio and the Palazzo Comunale.

The covered bridge over the Ticino river in Pavia was
rebuilt after being destroyed in the Second World War

Travel tip:

Pavia was once the most important town in northern Italy, the legacy of which is evident in its many fine buildings. These include a cathedral boasting one of the largest domes in Italy, a beautiful Romanesque Basilica, San Michele, and the well preserved Visconti Castle, surrounded by a large moat, which is home to the Civic Museum. The covered bridge across the Ticino River is a faithful reproduction of a 13th-century bridge destroyed during Allied bombing raids in the Second World War.

More reading:

Why Silvio Berlusconi took veteran journalist Enzo Biagi off the air

Bruno Vespa - TV journalist who opened door to late-night political debate

How football journalist Gianni Brera enriched the Italian language

Also on this day:

Festa di Santo Stefano

Books:

Buy Beppe Severgnini's books from Amazon

(picture credits: main Beppe Severgnini by Davide Schenette; second Beppe Severgnini by Alessio Jacona; Piazza del Duomo by MarkusMark; Bridge at Pavia by Konki; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Gianni Brera - football journalist

Outspoken writer who embellished Italian language

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

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

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

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:

Gianni Rivera: footballer turned politician who fell out with Berlusconi

Cagliari's Rombo di tuono, Luigi Riva

How Italy's first football club was launched in Genoa

Also on this day:

1861: The birth of writer Italo Svevo in Trieste

(Picture credits: Arena Civica by Blackcat; Castello Visconteo by Tempo61; both via Wikimedia Commons)

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Fabio Grosso - World Cup hero

Unspectacular career illuminated by unforgettable goal

Fabio Grosso at the 2006
World Cup finals

Fabio Grosso, the unlikely hero of Italy's victory in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, was born on this day in 1977 in Rome.

Selected for Marcello Lippi's squad for the Finals as cover for first-choice left-back Gianluca Zambrotta, Grosso eventually secured a place in Lippi's team and went on to score one of the most important goals in Italy's World Cup history as they beat the hosts, Germany, to reach the final.

He then secured his place in Azzurri folklore by scoring the winning penalty in the final against France as Italy lifted the trophy for the fourth time, equalling Brazil's record.

Yet Grosso arrived at the finals as a player who, if not an unknown, seldom attracted attention and had enjoyed a career that was respectable but certainly not eye-catching.

Five years before 2006,  he was playing in Serie C for Chieti, in the town in Abruzzo where he grew up, and only two and a half years before the tournament he left Serie A side Perugia to play for Palermo in Serie B.

Nonetheless, Palermo did win promotion to Serie A soon after Grosso arrived and at the same time he quietly established himself as Lippi's first choice at left back in the 2006 World Cup qualifying competition.

Yet his solid performances seldom making headlines.  Commentators have speculated that some Italian fans might not have even recognised him before 2006.

Even after the finals, when he earned a €5 million move to Internazionale, his career was notable for its fits and starts.

Marcello Lippi, Italy's coach

He won championships with Inter under Roberto Mancini and then in France with Olympique Lyon but at both clubs he quickly fell out of favour.  Inter sold him after one season, Lyon after two.

At international level, he retained Lippi's loyalty in the qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup but was not selected in the final squad for South Africa.

After Lyon, he joined Juventus, where he enjoyed a respectable first season but figured in fewer matches in his second campaign and was rarely selected after Antonio Conte took charge in the summer of 2011.  After making just two appearances in the 2011-12 campaign, he announced his retirement.

Yet thanks to the 2006 World Cup, his career will never be forgotten.  Picked for the opening group match after Zambrotta had been injured in training, he then benefited from right-back Cristian Zaccardo's poor form, which persuaded Lippi to switch Zambrotta from his normal position and play Grosso at left-back.

His first important contribution came in the round-of-16 match against Australia, when he won a disputed penalty in stoppage time that enabled Italy to scrape into the quarter-finals.

Relieve Fabio Grosso's goal against Germany and Italy's second moments later

The semi-final goal in Dortmund that made him a star came with a penalty shoot-out just two minutes away after a match that had been goalless but full of dramatic excitement, with Germany desperate to reach the Final in their own country.

It stemmed from a corner on the right that found its way to playmaker Andrea Pirlo on the edge of the penalty area.  Pirlo kept the ball at his feet before he spotted Grosso in a yard of space inside the box to the right, threading the ball to him between two defenders.

Grosso admitted to half closing his eyes as he swung his left foot, aiming at where he hoped the far corner of the goal might be.  His guesswork and delivery could not have been better, the ball curling inside the post just out of the reach of goalkeeper Jens Lehmann's dive.

Andrea Pirlo

Grosso ran away, repeatedly shouting 'Non ci credo' - 'I don't believe it' - in a celebration reminiscent of Marco Tardelli after his goal in the 1982 final in Spain, before teammates piled on top of him.  Moments later, Alessandro Del Piero scored Italy's second goal on a break from defence as Germany threw all their players forward in search of an equaliser.

The quality of Grosso's shot took some fans by surprise but he had been a goalscoring winger in his early career, scoring 47 times in 108 games for Renato Curi Angolana in regional football in Abruzzo.  Only when he had joined Perugia was he converted to a full back.

It impressed Lippi enough to name him as the man to take the often crucial fifth penalty, and after David Trezeguet's miss for France gave Grosso the chance to win the match and the trophy for Italy, he kept his cool and duly scored, to be the man of the moment for the second time.

Married with two children, Grosso returned to Juventus in 2014 to join the coaching staff.  He is currently in charge of the Primavera (Under-20s) team, having turned down the chance to coach Crotone in Serie A earlier this year.

Travel tip:

Chieti is among the most historic Italian cities, supposedly founded in 1181BC by the Homeric Greek hero Achilles. Among its main sights are a Gothic Cathedral, rebuilt after earthquake damage in the 18th century on the sight of a church that dates back to the 11th century, and the Villa Comunale, a neo-classical palace of the 19th century that is home to the National Archaeological Museum of Abruzzo.

The Fontana Maggiore in Perugia's Piazza IV Novembre

Travel tip:

Perugia, an ancient city that sits on a high hilltop midway between Rome and Florence, has a history that goes back to the Etruscan times, when it was one of the most powerful cities of the period.  It is also a university town with a long history, the University of Perugia having been founded in 1308.  The presence of the University for Foreigners and a number of smaller colleges gives Perugia a student population of more than 40,000.  The centre of the city, Piazza IV Novembre, has an interesting medieval fountain, the Fontana Maggiore, which was sculpted by Nicolo and Giovanni Pisano.

More reading:

1990 World Cup: Italy's semi-final heartbreak on home soil

1982 World Cup: Paolo Rossi's hat-trick in classic victory over Brazil

1970 World Cup: Gianni Rivera - the midfield maestro who became a politician

Also on this day:

1873: The death of astronomer Caterina Scarpellini

1907: The birth of novelist Alberto Moravia

1913: The birth of composer Mario Nascimbene

1925: The birth of oncologist Umberto Veronesi

1941: The birth of actress Laura Antonelli

1955: The birth of World Cup winner Alessandro Altobelli

(Picture credits: Fabio Grosso by David Ruddell; Marcello Lippi by Henry Flower; Fontana Maggiore by Alex Barrow; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Nevio Scala - footballer and coach

Led Parma to success in golden era of 1990s

Nevio Scala led Parma to unprecedented
success after taking charge in 1989

Nevio Scala, a European Cup winner with AC Milan as a player and the most successful coach of Parma's golden era in the 1990s, was born on this day in 1947 in Lozzo Atestino, a small town in the Euganean Hills, just south of Padua.

A midfielder who also played for Roma, Vicenza and Internazionale at the top level of Italian football, Scala was never picked for his country but won a Serie A title and a European Cup-Winners' Cup in addition to the European Cup with AC Milan.

But his achievements with Parma as coach arguably exceeded even that, given that they were a small provincial club that had never played in Serie A when Scala was appointed.

He had given notice of his ability by almost taking the tiny Calabrian club Reggina to Serie A in 1989 only a year after winning promotion from Serie C, and needed only one season to take Parma to the top flight for the first time.

With the massive financial backing of Calisto Tanzi, the founder and chairman of the local dairy giants Parmalat, Scala then led Parma into a period of sustained success no one could have predicted.

With a galaxy of top international players at his disposal, including Tomas Brolin, Antonio Benarrivo, Gianfranco Zola and Faustino Asprilla, Scala coached his side to play a swashbuckling brand of football that took the established big hitters by surprise.

Gianfranco Zola, one of the stars of the
Parma team of the 1990s

Between 1991 and 1995, Parma won the Coppa Italia, the European Cup-Winners' Cup, the European Super Cup and the UEFA Cup and the team Scala handed over when he was replaced by Carlo Ancelotti in 1996 went on to finish runners-up in Serie A in 1997.

He went on to enjoy more success as a coach, but outside Italy, winning trophies in Germany with Borussia Dortmund, in the Ukraine with Shakhtar Donetsk and in Russia with Spartak Moscow.

Scala returned to live in his home town of Lozzo Atestino, where he served on the local council and ran unsuccessfully as mayor in 2007.

He moved into football punditry on radio and TV with state broadcaster Rai, making regular appearances on the Sunday evening TV review of the Serie A programme, Domenica Sportiva. 

He was linked with a return to coaching, first at the Scottish club Motherwell and later with AS. Roma.  When he did return to football in 2015 it was as president of Parma, although a very different Parma from the one he coached.

Since he left the Stadio Ennio Tardini, Parma has twice been made bankrupt, first in 2004 in the wake of the catastrophic collapse of Calisto Tanzi's Parmalat empire, which saw the business tycoon jailed for fraud and criminal association, and again in 2015, when the relaunched club folded with debts of €218 million.

In July 2015, with the support of pasta makers Barilla, the club made another fresh start as SSD Parma Calcio 1913, taking its name from the year of foundation of the original club and was granted entry to Serie D.

Scala was appointed president and former player Luigi Apolloni as head coach.  The new club sold more than 9,000 season tickets, more than doubling the Serie D record and won promotion at the first attempt into professional football league Lega Pro.

The 13th century Valbona Castle at Lozzo Atestino

Travel tip:

The Colli Euganei, to give the Euganean Hills their Italian name, was the first regional park to be established in the Veneto when it was mapped out in 1989, enclosing 15 towns, including Lozzo Atestino, and the 81 hills - rising to between 300 and 600m - that make up the area, a volcanic outcrop in an otherwise flat terrain. Lozzo Atestino is situated at the foot of Monte Lozzo.  Of particular interest to visitors is the 13th century Valbona Castle, an imposing fort that now houses a restaurant.


Travel tip:

Despite the damage done to its economy by the Parmalat collapse, one of the biggest financial scandals in Italian history, Parma remains an elegant city with the air of prosperity common to much of Emilia-Romagna, famous for Prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and boasting some outstanding architecture, including the 11th century Romanesque cathedral and the octagonal 12th century baptistery that adjoins it.

More reading:

Antonio Conte - former Juventus coach now in charge at Chelsea

The birth of Italy's first football club

The story of Italy's World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi

Also on this day:

1710: The death of composer Bernardo Pasquini


(Picture of Nevio Scala by Anastasiya Fedorenko; Gianfranco Zola by Hilton1949; Valbona Castle by Milazzi; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Luigi Riva - an Azzurri great

Italy's record goalscorer and hero of Cagliari

Striker Luigi 'Gigi' Riva pictured during
Cagliari's victorious 1969-70 season

Luigi 'Gigi' Riva, who was born on this day in 1944, is widely regarded as one of the finest strikers in the history of Italian football.   

Despite playing in an era when football in Italy was notoriously defensive, he scored more than 200 goals in a 16-year club career, 156 of them in Serie A for Cagliari, with whom he won the Scudetto (shield) as Italian League champions in 1970.

Nicknamed 'Rombo di tuono' - thunderclap - by the football writer Gianni Brera, Riva is also the all-time leading goalscorer for the Italian national team with 35 goals, his record having stood since 1974.

After his playing career, Riva spent 23 years as part of the management team for the Azzurri and was a key member of the backroom staff when Italy won the World Cup for a fourth time in 2006.

Born in Lombardia, not far from Lake Maggiore, Riva spent virtually his whole football career with Cagliari and made his home in Sardinia.  The 1969-70 title is the only championship in the club's history and Riva, who scored 21 goals in the title-winning season, is as revered on the island as Diego Maradona is in Naples.

Although he came from a loving home in the small town of Leggiuno, just a few kilometres inland from the shores of Lake Maggiore, Riva had a tough upbringing.

His father, Ugo, died when he was just eight years old, killed in an accident at the foundry where he worked, after which his mother, Edis, decided to send Luigi to a religious boarding school, where the regime was hard.

Luigi Riva in the Italy shirt in which his
goals tally is still the highest.

He did not blame his mother, who had no choice in her circumstances but to work long hours for low pay, but Riva would later confess to suffering loneliness and depression.   One of his regrets was that his mother did not live long enough for him to provide her with a comfortable retirement.

Release from the deprivations of school came when he was 15 and went to live with his sister, taking a job as a motor mechanic with dreams of becoming a racing driver.  But it was his skill as a footballer, and in particular what he could do with his powerful left foot, that began to get him noticed.  After scoring 63 goals in two seasons for a local amateur team, he earned a trial with Internazionale in Milan.  That came to nothing but he was offered a contract to play in Serie C for Legnano, based about 50km from Leggiuno.

He stayed there only one season.  His talent attracted numerous scouts and when Cagliari offered him the chance to play in Serie B he took it.

Sardinia was still a somewhat primitive island in 1963 and Riva was not sure what to make of it. His first impression was of a place 'where they sent people to punish them'.

Yet he grew to love the island and the Sardinians took him to their hearts.  Previously regarded as a perennial Serie B club, they were promoted to Serie A in his first season and, on the back of his goals, began to climb steadily.

Leading Serie A scorer in 1966-67, when Cagliari finished sixth, he was capocannoneri again in 1968-69 with 21 goals as Cagliari achieved the highest league position in their history as runners-up to Fiorentina.

But the crowning glory of his career was the 1969-70 season as Cagliari lost only two matches and conceded just 11 goals in winning their one and only Scudetto.

Riva scored 21 goals of all kinds - tap-ins, long-range shots, powerful headers. Although some critics complained he was too reliant on his left foot, many players effective with both feet could not match his versatility.  An overhead kick with which he scored against Vicenza is still regarded as one of the best Serie A goals of all time.

Although they had other good players, Cagliari supporters hailed Riva as the one who made it possible and his place in the island's folklore was established for all time.

A short film from RAI about Riva and the 1969-70 season

It might not have happened had Riva not felt so at home on the island. In 1967, when Juventus offered him a fortune to go to Turin, he had turned them down.

“I would have earned triple,” he said later. "But Sardinia had made me a man. It was my land. In those days, they called us shepherds and bandits around Italy. I was 23 and the great Juve wanted to cover me in money. I wanted the Scudetto for my land. We did it, the bandits and shepherds.”

With Italy, for whom he won 42 caps, he was a European champion in 1968 but the ultimate title of World Cup winner eluded him, essentially because the great Italian team of 1970 met an even better one in Brazil in the finals in Mexico.

Riva scored twice in the 4-1 quarter-final win over the hosts and Italy's third goal in the so-called 'Game of the Century', the 4-3 extra-time semi-final victory against West Germany, but Italy were overwhelmed as the brilliant Brazilians won 4-1 in the final.

Bedevilled by injuries for most of his career - he suffered a broken leg twice while playing for the national team - he retired in 1978, two years after rupturing a tendon in his right thigh. Cagliari retired his No 11 shirt in his honour in 2005.

The Castello district of Cagliari is
especially beautiful at night

For all that he regarded himself as an adopted Sardinian, Riva never forgot his roots.  In retirement, he returned to Leggiuno, where he knocked down the house where his parents had lived and built a new one in its place, staying there periodically to chat with local people, some of whom he had known when he was a child, and to reflect on the course his life had taken him.

Travel tip:

Although it is Sardinia's main port and industrial centre, Cagliari has become a popular tourist destination for the tree-lined boulevards and elegant arcades of the marina area and the charm of its historical centre, known as Castello, with limestone buildings that prompted DH Lawrence to call it 'the white Jerusalem', which take on beautiful pastel hues at sunset.

Stay in Cagliari

The Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso

Travel tip:

Leggiuno, situated in an elevated position just inland from Lake Maggiore, is close to the Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso, an extraordinary structure that appears to rise from the waters of Lake Maggiore, clinging to a sheer rock cliff face.  A Roman Catholic monastery dating from the 14th century, it used to be accessible only by boat or by a steep flight of steps descending from the top of the cliff.  Since 2010, visitors have been able to reach it via a lift built into an old well.

Stay in nearby Reno Leggiuno

More reading:

Italy's historic fourth World Cup victory

Paolo Rossi's 1982 World Cup hat-trick

Dino Zoff - captain of the 1982 Azzurri

Also on this day:

1512: Niccolo Machiavelli forced to quit by Medici bosses

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