On 2 March 1886, in Turin, the most successful coach in the history of our national team was born, a proud leader who was able to lead the Azzurri to success in two consecutive editions of the greatest world competition (1934 and 1938) – then called the Rimet Cup – interspersing these exploits with the victory in the ’36 Olympics (the only one for our colors) and seasoning it all with the affirmation in two International Cups (the forerunner of the Europeans) in 1930 and 1935.
Results that undoubtedly make one of the greatest unifying characters of Italian sport. Vittorio Pozzo: King Midas of the national team.
LIFE
Pozzo was born on March 2, 1886in Ponderano, a stone’s throw from Turin in full industrial development at the end of the 19th century, from a family of the petty bourgeoisie.
Vittorio’s childhood was not easy, characterized by modest economic opportunities but, thanks to the efforts of his parents, also characterized by a good education which, combined with his undoubted personal gifts, contributed to forming him as an upright man who did preparation and study his peculiar gift and the pleasure of traveling and discovering new cultures the secret of his personal evolution.
And it was thanks to a trip to England that he discovered that football that would fill his days and accompany him to undying glory. He began his career by founding the Turin Football Club(the current grenade team of Turin) as “President – player” but at the age of 25 he stopped playing the role of footballer to concentrate on his studies and then became a manager of Pirelli.
But it was at the end of the Great War, where he distinguished himself as a lieutenant of the Alpine troops, that he saw the turning point of his sporting career. Thanks to his competence, he gains the attention of the sports world by entering the world of the national football team, of which he becomes more than once sole commissioner.
T HE LEGEND
And the beginning of the legend . That of the coach who succeeded in what no other coach was ever able to approach: winning two consecutive World Cups (1934 and 1938). To understand the scope of the enterprise, just think that, after the Azzurri, only the great Brazil of Pele, Didi, Vava and Garrincha and associates managed to win two consecutive editions of the World Cup, in ’58 in Sweden and in ’62 in Chile. but with two different technical commissioners, respectively Feola and Moreira.
One wonders what were the secrets for such a sensational success.
Well, Pozzo did it with his methods that combined his military training and his ability to lead the group, in an authoritative but not authoritarian way, beating on the strings of identity and national pride, thus making the most of his players. . Simple ingredients for epic feats.
Emblematic of its dual nature, militaristic but not authoritarian, and of the strong bond, even human, established with their players, are the words that Piola said with reference to the hard training in the pre-World Cup training camp in ’38:
We had been returning for two months . of very close withdrawal. Nothing women. And on the pitch we saw not one, but two balls! ”
Piola then said that in that situation, Giuseppe MeazzaI find myself begging Pozzo for half a day of rest. Despite his preference for rigor and discipline, Pozzo did not forget to listen to his boys and allowed half a day. With the triumphal epilogue that we all know.
THE “METHOD”
He was an extremely prepared coach who never denies his link with his military past but who knew how to combine a strong desire for evolution, managing to bring innovation to a football that, for the past 30 years, had been fossilized on the method of Cambridge Pyramid , that 2-3-5 inverted pyramid of Anglo-Saxon matrix and, from there, spread throughout the world.
It was Pozzo, in fact, together with his colleague Meisl, coach of the Austrian Wunderteam , who reworked this module and evolved it into the so -called “method”, a sort of 2-3-2-3 which was based on the centrality of the centromediano and which provided for the centralization of the full backs and their advancement according to the offside tactics and which was the secret of the successes of the Grande Torino , which won five consecutive championships from 1942-1943 until the Superga tragedy.
It seemed only right to honor, on the day of his birth, a man who must be considered, by right, one of the supporters of the modernization of football and who knew how to become an Italian legend in the most difficult historical moment for our nation. What makes Pozzo’s success special is in fact being able to achieve it in a period like that of the 1930s, collecting the pieces of the dramatic experience ofGreat War and becoming the absolute reference point for an entire sports movement with an incredible sequence of successes that would never be repeated and that, probably, will never be repeated.