on gaetano scirea
I think it's fair to say that the constitution of the spine of the football team has changed in the last two decades. The libero, the regista, the enganche, even the traditional goal-hanging centre-forward - these are no longer tactical positions as profitable to teams today as they once were. Of the last three there are still fine examples powering their teams through football here and there, and perhaps it’s reasonable to assume that the playmaking roles, at least, will remain a function of talent, if not tactics, in the minds of managers. But lightweight, fast-paced counterattacking football seems to have done well and truly away with the function in which some of the world's most legendary defenders played -- that of the #6, the libero or the sweeper, who played in between the centre-backs.
Everyone knows of Franz Beckenbauer and Franco Baresi, whose careers might be seen to bookend the most glorious years of the libero. baki_neko put together pictures of another man perhaps as important as either of them, not only to his club and country, but to the very role of the sweeper and how it came to be viewed in football.
“In the 1970s, another defence was built which was to rival the power and fame of that of Herrera's Inter. This time, it was Juventus that constructed a back four which was amongst the greatest of all time. The sweeper in that side was Gaetano Scirea, the most elegant defender of the 1970s and 1980s.”
Even if we ignored the statistics, and the weighted fact that a defender in his thirties managed to keep a young gun playing the same position out of the national side for about six years, Gaetano Scirea edges out over Baresi as the greatest defender Italy has produced in modern times when such things are being discussed. Mentions grow less and less frequent; often the discussion has to involve a die-hard Juventino, or someone from the generation that was actually able to watch him play. While the legends of Beckenbauer and Baresi continue to be supported by their presence in the world of football and their attachment to the clubs of their careers, Scirea is an absence at the heart of Juventus and the Azzurri -he was killed in a car explosion in Poland at the age of 35. In 2006, he was the only member of the 1982-World Cup winning Italian squad who was not present to see their modern-day successors lift the Jules Rimet once again.
Scirea was born in Milan in 1953, and played in Bergamo, at Atalanta, for the first two seasons of his career, before transferring to the club where he was to stay, quite literally, for the rest of his life: Juventus. The Turin-based outfit was then in one of the ‘winning cycles’ that have regularly punctuated its history, and Scirea was the soul of a defence that would go on into legend through the ‘80s as the steel behind the silken flair of forwards like Michel Platini and Paolo Rossi - in front of the likes of Antonio Cabrini, Claudio Gentile, Sergio Brio and Antonello Cuccureddu, conducting play like a metronome, was Scirea.
Yes, that #1 is Dino Zoff.
“Scirea was neither physically strong nor particularly quick, yet his ability to read the game and anticipate play enabled him to move out of defence with the ball, or simply to shepherd forwards into the wrong positions. Scirea's technical ability and balance allowed him to win the ball cleanly and he rarely committed fouls. He was the opposite of the stereotypical brutal, physical Italian defender. Journalist and Juventus fan Darwin Pastorin called him 'a gentleman sweeper' and wrote that he played with 'the sound of silence.'”
The 'brutal, physical Italian defender' is a stereotype completely fair to the likes of Claudio Gentile, Scirea's Juve and Nazionale teammate, whose most recent mark of recognition was this week’s Guardian Joy Of Six, in which he appears as one of the élite of football’s hard men. *g* Gentile was hardly just a card-happy wind-up merchant, but his primary responsibility was to destroy play, not create it. He, along with fellow one-club man and centre-back Brio, formed the static heart of the defence just behind the graceful Scirea.
Hanging out with Paul Breitner
:D
Scirea is credited with developing the position and duties of the sweeper position that were initially defined best by Beckenbauer through the 1970s, and that came to form a crucial part of the actual, practicable system of catenaccio practiced in Italy in the '80s. He expanded the scope of the #6 role from a fairly immobile game of dispossession and give-and-go to include intelligent running off the ball between the midfield and the defence, creating space for the team's attacking threats from midfield, and often penetrating far into the heart of the opposition half, detaching and re-attaching himself from the defensive line as required. Not averse to the odd attempt on goal himself, his career goal tally stands at 32.
Scirea's successes with his teams form a record that still has the power to amaze. From Wikipedia:
Scirea is one of only five players in European football history - along with Antonio Cabrini, Sergio Brio, Stefano Tacconi and Danny Blind- to have won all national and international trophies for football clubs recognized by UEFA and FIFA. He played for the Italian national team for more than a decade during which he became World Champion with the 1982 FIFA World Cup winning team.
His European Cup victory in 1986 remains shadowed by the memories of Heysel, the stadium where it was achieved in the aftermath of great tragedy. He was Juve captain at the time.
For Juventini and Azzurri fans, Scirea also remains a symbol of the sportsman’s virtues of correctness and fair play. The fact that he was never shown a red card throughout his career forms a great part of his legend, and is surely a record for a defender in professional football, although I don’t know if he is alone in holding it. His record of 552 appearances for Juventus was only broken last season, by Alessandro del Piero.
He retired into a scouting role with his beloved Juventus at the age of 34 in 1988. Sadly, it was not a career that could last long. While on a scouting mission for September 1989, Scirea died in a car accident in Skierniewice, Poland.
This looks like a banner from a Roma curva, which seems like an astounding thing in this day.
On the suggestion of Enzo Bearzot, the hoary old trainer who took Scirea’s Azzurri squad to World Cup victory in 1982, Juventus retired their #6 jersey in his honour [Although it seems like they did it only in 2005 - snatching it from poor old Nicola Legrottaglie]. The Juve fans' curva is now named after him.
The quotes, unless otherwise stated, are from John Foot's largely excellent book on Italian football, Calcio.
Everyone knows of Franz Beckenbauer and Franco Baresi, whose careers might be seen to bookend the most glorious years of the libero. baki_neko put together pictures of another man perhaps as important as either of them, not only to his club and country, but to the very role of the sweeper and how it came to be viewed in football.
“In the 1970s, another defence was built which was to rival the power and fame of that of Herrera's Inter. This time, it was Juventus that constructed a back four which was amongst the greatest of all time. The sweeper in that side was Gaetano Scirea, the most elegant defender of the 1970s and 1980s.”
Even if we ignored the statistics, and the weighted fact that a defender in his thirties managed to keep a young gun playing the same position out of the national side for about six years, Gaetano Scirea edges out over Baresi as the greatest defender Italy has produced in modern times when such things are being discussed. Mentions grow less and less frequent; often the discussion has to involve a die-hard Juventino, or someone from the generation that was actually able to watch him play. While the legends of Beckenbauer and Baresi continue to be supported by their presence in the world of football and their attachment to the clubs of their careers, Scirea is an absence at the heart of Juventus and the Azzurri -he was killed in a car explosion in Poland at the age of 35. In 2006, he was the only member of the 1982-World Cup winning Italian squad who was not present to see their modern-day successors lift the Jules Rimet once again.
Scirea was born in Milan in 1953, and played in Bergamo, at Atalanta, for the first two seasons of his career, before transferring to the club where he was to stay, quite literally, for the rest of his life: Juventus. The Turin-based outfit was then in one of the ‘winning cycles’ that have regularly punctuated its history, and Scirea was the soul of a defence that would go on into legend through the ‘80s as the steel behind the silken flair of forwards like Michel Platini and Paolo Rossi - in front of the likes of Antonio Cabrini, Claudio Gentile, Sergio Brio and Antonello Cuccureddu, conducting play like a metronome, was Scirea.
Yes, that #1 is Dino Zoff.
“Scirea was neither physically strong nor particularly quick, yet his ability to read the game and anticipate play enabled him to move out of defence with the ball, or simply to shepherd forwards into the wrong positions. Scirea's technical ability and balance allowed him to win the ball cleanly and he rarely committed fouls. He was the opposite of the stereotypical brutal, physical Italian defender. Journalist and Juventus fan Darwin Pastorin called him 'a gentleman sweeper' and wrote that he played with 'the sound of silence.'”
The 'brutal, physical Italian defender' is a stereotype completely fair to the likes of Claudio Gentile, Scirea's Juve and Nazionale teammate, whose most recent mark of recognition was this week’s Guardian Joy Of Six, in which he appears as one of the élite of football’s hard men. *g* Gentile was hardly just a card-happy wind-up merchant, but his primary responsibility was to destroy play, not create it. He, along with fellow one-club man and centre-back Brio, formed the static heart of the defence just behind the graceful Scirea.
Hanging out with Paul Breitner
:D
Scirea is credited with developing the position and duties of the sweeper position that were initially defined best by Beckenbauer through the 1970s, and that came to form a crucial part of the actual, practicable system of catenaccio practiced in Italy in the '80s. He expanded the scope of the #6 role from a fairly immobile game of dispossession and give-and-go to include intelligent running off the ball between the midfield and the defence, creating space for the team's attacking threats from midfield, and often penetrating far into the heart of the opposition half, detaching and re-attaching himself from the defensive line as required. Not averse to the odd attempt on goal himself, his career goal tally stands at 32.
Scirea's successes with his teams form a record that still has the power to amaze. From Wikipedia:
Scirea is one of only five players in European football history - along with Antonio Cabrini, Sergio Brio, Stefano Tacconi and Danny Blind- to have won all national and international trophies for football clubs recognized by UEFA and FIFA. He played for the Italian national team for more than a decade during which he became World Champion with the 1982 FIFA World Cup winning team.
His European Cup victory in 1986 remains shadowed by the memories of Heysel, the stadium where it was achieved in the aftermath of great tragedy. He was Juve captain at the time.
For Juventini and Azzurri fans, Scirea also remains a symbol of the sportsman’s virtues of correctness and fair play. The fact that he was never shown a red card throughout his career forms a great part of his legend, and is surely a record for a defender in professional football, although I don’t know if he is alone in holding it. His record of 552 appearances for Juventus was only broken last season, by Alessandro del Piero.
He retired into a scouting role with his beloved Juventus at the age of 34 in 1988. Sadly, it was not a career that could last long. While on a scouting mission for September 1989, Scirea died in a car accident in Skierniewice, Poland.
This looks like a banner from a Roma curva, which seems like an astounding thing in this day.
On the suggestion of Enzo Bearzot, the hoary old trainer who took Scirea’s Azzurri squad to World Cup victory in 1982, Juventus retired their #6 jersey in his honour [Although it seems like they did it only in 2005 - snatching it from poor old Nicola Legrottaglie]. The Juve fans' curva is now named after him.
The quotes, unless otherwise stated, are from John Foot's largely excellent book on Italian football, Calcio.