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When it comes to Italian football, it seems that the most impressive thing in people's minds is the era of chain defense. At the 1938 World Cup, the Austrian Rapán, who had loved coffee all his life, went to poor and weak Switzerland, and he played a trick - swinging three defenders, switzerland, who almost did not know what to win, killed Germany in the first game, and lost hungary in the second round, which later football history called "Lapan's goalkeeper".
Of course, in Italy, the three defenders played by the likes of Rocco and Herrera, and it is also their "Lapan's door" in Italy. But if we go back to the roots, they are also on the shoulders of their predecessors, and this person is Vittorio Pozzo.
Italian football should always remember the name of this man, it is he who made Italian football rise rapidly in the forest of the world, and the blue of the Aegean Sea will always shine in the football world. He is forever remembered for the "Turin Team" and a terrible air disaster, the Supega air disaster.
The name Vittorio Pozzo has already symbolized the glory and collapse of Italian football in a certain sense. From heaven to hell, two very different eras manifested themselves in him.
Pozzo: The originator of Italian concrete defense
Vittorio Pozzo was born on 2 March 1886 in turin, an industrial city in northern Italy. During his studies in England, Pozzo was fascinated by the style of soccer, whether it was from the tacit cooperation of the team or the super personal ability of the players, which left an indelible impression on Pozzo's heart. Two years later, Pozzo, who had returned from his studies, was elected secretary general of the Turin Football Association. Subsequently, Pozzoli ruled against the crowd and united several Clubs of Turin to form Juventus, and the first coach of the merged Juventus team was Pozzo.
Under his guidance, Juventus dominated Italian football for many years. In June 1912, at the age of 26, Pozzo was appointed head coach of the national team by the Italian Football Association. The young and vigorous Pozzo was swept out of the house after only three games in charge due to poor results. At the end of 1929, Pozzo successfully realized the "second entrance to the palace".
The comeback pozzo began a radical overhaul of the Italian team at the time, developing the so-called WW formation from the 235 formation, more like the original WM deformation of Chapman the Great, pulling the two interior forwards back from the 5 of the 235, in this new 3-2-2-3 formation, a defensive midfielder retreating, responsible for staring at people, while the full-backs focused on the opposing wingers. A complete set of man-and-man tactics was born, and Pozzo became the ancestor of Italian concrete defense. In the 1934 World Cup on home soil, the Italian team led by Pozzo beat the United States and Spain consecutively, defeated Austria 1-0 in the semi-finals, and defeated Czechoslovakia 2-1 in the final to win the championship.
Those familiar with Italian politics will inevitably be familiar with Mussolini's name, and in the smoke-filled political environment, mussolini's government and Italy's football development process are inseparable. The fierce dictator took control of Italian football, and in the extreme political environment of "execution without winning", Pozzo and his Italian team struggled to survive in the cracks. In 1938, the ambitious Italian team embarked on a journey to defend its title. In the knockout rounds, Norway, France and Brazil were successively cut off, and in the final, facing the strong Hungary, the calm head coach Pozzo commanded with ease, with Clausi and Piola both scored twice, Italy defeated Hungary 4-2, successfully defending the title. Pozzo also became the only coach to date to win two World Cup titles. Without World War II, without the air crash, perhaps Pozzo's Italy could have won the Remit Cup three times before Brazil.
Two World Cup titles, the dynasty hegemony was destroyed by disaster
It was May 4, 1949, and on that day there was a catastrophe that changed the world football landscape and affected the course of Italian football afterwards.
Turin had just finished the game in the Latin Cup, returned on an Italian-made Fiat 212 passenger plane, but under the influence of bad weather, the plane failed to land several times, and finally crashed into the church on the hill, 18 players, 2 coaches, 2 club officials, 1 team doctor, 3 journalists and 5 crew members, all 31 people were killed. It was the accident that cost Italy an entire generation of young football talents and plunged into a dark age of at least 16 years.
Pozzo was 63 years old at the time, and after the crash, he rushed to the scene to identify the body. In a chaotic accident scene, the players who passed through his hand to enter the national team were completely different. One by one, he identified the physical characteristics of the team members and instructed the police to piece together the remains. Despite this, the bodies of two of the team members are unrecognizable.
One of the most legendary teams in Italian history disappeared in this air disaster, and the "Era of Grand Turin" existed only in history since that day, and Pozzo, who was more than sixty years old, had mixed feelings, and the blue empire he single-handedly created went from "light" to "darkness".