Why all Barcelona fans should be grateful to the great Arrigo Sacchi

Arrigo Sacchi after winning his second Champions League trophy in 1990.

“When I started, most of the attention was on the defensive phase.

“We had a sweeper and man-markers. The attacking phase came down to intelligence and common sense of the individual and the creativity of the No. 10.

“Italy had a defensive culture, not just in football. For centuries, everybody invaded us.”

(Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson)

Italy – the cradle of defensive football, the birthplace of the Catenaccio, the land of Helenio Herrara and of some of the greatest defenders to have graced the game of football, namely Maldini, Cannavaro , Gentile and Baresi.

Perhaps eternally associated with the so-called “boring” brand of football, Italian football’s philosophy was almost always the same – let your opponents have the ball, let your team sit back tight and defend, and try to break at a blistering pace during a counter attack.

The role of the traditional Libero was greatly stressed upon, and one was likely to see a dull game without any free flowing or fluid movements of players, both on and off the ball. That was the Italian game; it could never shake off the label of being too “defensive” due to the Catenaccio approach to football. Well, back then, anyway.

In 1987, a former shoe-salesman brought with him an entire new philosophy of play unknown to previous Italian teams.

Arrigo Sacchi killed the libero.

The Italian maestro led a one-man revolution against defensive football when he was appointed manager of AC Milan in 1987, and although it didn’t catch on, his name certainly did. His pressing game brought success not only to his AC Milan side of the 90s, but it has also revolutionised the way every team defends without the ball.

He achieved the rare feat of retaining the European Cup, and also claimed one Scudetto and one Coppa Italia during his four years in charge.

Tactics and Total Football employed by Sacchi

Sacchi arrived at Milan as a nobody, even though he had the-then Milan president Silvio Berlusconi’s full support. He had to take up a massive job at a massive club, he had to ensure that his players would adapt to his unique training methods and also, he had to satisfy the fans with trophies.

So when it came to light that Sacchi was obsessed about creating a team that would employ attacking football, at a time when almost the entire Italy was obsessed with the Cataneccio, it was deemed quite odd.

In spite of all this attention, Sacchi’s philosophy was essentially simple, yet highly effective at the same time. He demanded his players to squeeze the game right at the centre of the park, and ensure that the distance between his defensive and forward lines was never more than 25 metres. Sacchi played with high intensity and a very high defensive line.

He liked his team to fundamentally use a zonal-marking system. Setting up in a simple 4-4-2 formation, he forced his opponents to go out wide, and when the ball was in the opposition half, his defensive line was nearly at the centre line.

He reasoned that by squeezing the pitch, in order for his opponent to get through his side, they’d need to break down three lines of players in quick succession. Not many managed it.

This system caused havoc on the pitch. It ensured that the midfielders and strikers could shift high up on the pitch, which created pressure on the opposite team, because there was hardly any space available to them. This would either lead to the ball being kicked up the field, or the player hesitating and being dispossessed.

AC Milan 1990

Another peculiar method that Sacchi bought to the forefront was the idea of “Shadow Football”. He strongly believed that this method would bring a lot of unity in his team, as well as develop the keen positional sense which was required to make his own philosophy work. The coolest thing about this “Shadow Football” technique? There is no actual football involved!

A famous story in relation to this is about a scout who went to spy on AC Milan before an upcoming fixture. He hid in the bushes and watched Milan move about the pitch, gracefully and like clockwork. He was impressed. But then suddenly, something dawned upon him. He realised that the session involved no football. When he went back to report to his manager, he explained what had happened and began to sound like a man possessed. He was confused yet shocked at how someone could train without a football. Duly, the following week, Milan won the fixture and even kept a clean sheet.

Actually, Sacchi would tell his players where the ball was, and they would move accordingly. This helped them to perfect the pure zonal marking system to neutralize the opponent team’s attacking options. This set of players, probably even to this day, remain the perfect example of “teamwork” thanks to this ingenious exercise.

Even a Real Madrid scout was duped by this method on the eve of Sacchi’s greatest-ever result — the 5-0 win over Los Blancos in the San Siro.

The squads:

AC Milan: Giovanni Galli; Mauro Tassotti, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta, Paolo Maldini; Roberto Donadoni, Frank Rijkaard, Carlo Ancelotti, Angelo Colombo; Ruud Gullit, Marco Van Basten

Barcelona: Victor Valdes; Dani Alves, Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Eric Abidal; Sergio Busquets; Xavi, Andres Iniesta; Pedro, Lionel Messi, David Villa

Modern day Barcelona

Fast forward to today, and meet the modern day kings of football – the lethal and almost inhuman team of Barcelona under Pep Guardiola , who won everything there is to win under his tutelage. Their silky passes, through balls and high pressing game have bought admiration from fans all around the world as well as trophies – La Liga, Champion’s League, Copa Del Ray, Spanish Supercopa and FIFA Club World Cup.

The trio of Xavi, Messi and Iniesta had (and still do) the audiences spellbound; fans have written poems on seeing the passes being threaded together by these three; songs have been sung hailing them as the greatest ever.

The idea of tiki-taka that Barcelona employs is unique, and is actually Total Football being implemented at its very best. Defenders who can play anywhere across the backline, midfielders who can play in defense, forwards who play as midfielders, central midfielders who play as wingers, and the best player in the world who can play as a right forward or a false 9 – you name it, they have it all.

There has been so much reinvention about football in these last four or five years done by this great Barcelona side that one wonders if the game has changed forever.

However, this is not an idea that can be uniquely credited to the great brains at the Nou Camp, because one man had already used this style with phenomenal success, and enforced this idea almost two decades ago.

That man was Arrigo Sacchi.

The Basic idea

Despite massive cultural differences, there are many similarities between Guardiola’s Barcelona and that Milan side that justify this cross cultural comparison.

Both sides boast strong cores built on home-grown talent developed internally – Barca’s Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol and Pique matched by Milan’s Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta and Tassotti. This philosophy has greatly assisted both these teams, for the players of both the teams had almost a telepathic understanding with each other.

Franco Baresi once said of Paolo Maldini, his defensive partner in crime, that he could play with him “blindfolded”. That, alongwith the implementation of Sacchi’s innovative “Shadow Football” technique, made team-play all the more formidable.

For the Barcelona side, their core players have such an excellent peripheral vision, which is only possible if you play together, alongside each other throughout your developing years.

This rare gift has enabled the Barcelona side to employ their model of football all the more effectively, making quick and delightful one-twos, layoffs and through balls easier to judge and foresee.

The foreign element

Adding to this idea of academy players, both these sides had “difference makers”- exceptional foreign players who could change the flow of the game in the blink of an eye, who could conjure something magical when nothing noteworthy was happening. Simply put, both these sides had that extra sparkle that made them world beaters.

For that Milan side, it was Rijkaard, Gullit and Van Basten, and for Barca it would be Leo Messi and Dani Alves.

AC Milan would still be a great side without Basten, but probably not the one they turned out to be, for Van Basten was probably the greatest all-round striker of his generation. The influence of the Milanese trio can be very easily made out from the fact that these were the only three players in the history of the game who were voted as FIFA World Player of the Year in the same year.

The same is applicable to Barca. Without the little, dimunitive Argentine they could have never been the champs that they are today. Players like him add skill, flair and shape to a side, so much so that whenever they step on the pitch the entire team morale rises by several notches, as was seen when an injured Lionel Messi came on against PSG in the second leg of their Champion’s League clash last season, and changed the entire course of the game.

He limped and walked and helped to set up the goal that helped the Cules go through, and further underlined his almost God-like presence on a football field.

Pep Guardiola adopted strains from Arrigo Sacchi’s great Milan sqaud of the late 80s and early 90s

Tactics

Tactically too, these too sides are greatly similar. Barcelona’s style of pressing the opposition in the rare event that they lose the ball was what Sacchi’s Milan were famed for – the former Parma coach encouraged his players to regain possession aggressively – every player pulling their own weight defensively to exhaust the opposition and control the pace of the game.

But Sacchi has claimed Milan practised different forms of the art at different points in a game, and did not always use the mad rushing that Barcelona’s game shows, whenever they used to lose possession.

“There was partial pressing, where it was more about jockeying; there was total pressing which was more about winning the ball; there was fake pressing, when we pretended to press, but, in fact, used the time to recuperate.”(Inverting the Pyramid)

In addition to this high pressing game, both sides boasted extended attacking options. Barcelona have one way of playing, which is to dominate possession and territory, and pass the opposition to death with quick tiki-taka, one-twos, third man runs, before opening up and blowing their competitors away.

A side could focus on Messi and Villa, only to be undone by any one of Iniesta, Dani Alves or Pedro. There are hardly any direct balls or crosses or long shots in Barcelona’s game; almost every attack is guided through the centre.

Guardiola’s expansive 4-3-3 combined with the players at his disposal allows his side to be more flexible – time and time again we see Barca’s forward line and midfield switch positions, morphing into various formations dependent on the scenario – not allowing defences to keep track of the players they see before them. Although people have complained about this so-called lack of diversity, the Blaugrana style is so effective that it could rip any defence apart.

On the other hand, Milan’s offensive threat was not just posed by Van Basten, but also by the likes of Gullit, Donadoni, Ancelotti and Rijkaard. Milan’s 4-4-2 was more restrictive, as Milan attacked more methodically, in more business-like fashion – but were no less clinical.

They had a lot of ways of scoring, yet the basic gist was the same. While Sacchi’s team ended a game almost exactly the way they used to start it, Barcelona’s players use the same idea a bit differently, because unlike their Italian counterparts, they cannot afford to whip in crosses from the wings – none of the players have very good height.

The former Parma coach preferred the idea of “two banks of four”, which allowed his team to attack and come back to defend as one unit, while Pep too followed almost the same idea, by developing the idea wherein players can always fill in for each other in almost every position on the pitch, and the game progresses by constant interchange of positions, hence making attacking all the more difficult for the opposing side.

The entire backline of Tassotti, Baresi, Costacurta and Paolo Maldini, like Barcelona’s, were comfortable on the ball; even Galli or Valdes, the goalkeepers of the two sides, were capable of starting an attack from in front of their goal, almost acting as sweepers at the base, while the strikers of the Rossoneri scored all kinds of goals up front – whether beautiful or ugly – just like a certain Messi or Pedro or Villa do today.

In fact, the similarity between the two sides are so great, but the execution so vastly different, that one is only left to wonder of the outcome if these two sides were ever to meet in some imaginary world.

Conclusion

Arrigo Saachi’s Milan. “Grande Milan”. The last side to ever retain the European Cup, and one of the finest first XI’s ever seen on a football pitch, that comprised of the likes of Maldini, Ancelotti, Baresi and the “Flying Dutchman” Marco Van Basten, a team that had no competition in world football for a considerable time span, a team that swept aside opponents and ascended to its lofty perch as one of the greatest sides in the game.

Like wise Guardiola’s Barca, who have won much more than their predecessors, will also go down as one of the finest teams ever to have graced the game of football, that comprised of the four-time Ballon D’or winner Lionel Andres Messi, the supremely gifted and technically perfect duo of Xavi and Iniesta as well as the brilliant Busquets, who have won a mind-boggling 14 trophies in just four seasons.

The team has already been awarded the title of the most entertaining side to have ever played the game, and arguably, the greatest too.

Sacchi had once said that he had “coached the best team in history”. Whether he was right or wrong will be for the fans to ponder, but what we can definitely agree about is that Sacchi’s theory, the extension of Johann Cruyff’s “Total Football” in the 70s, was the actual precursor to the way that the Spanish champions play today. Perhaps that is reason enough for the modern day Cules, and indeed the entire footballing world, to stand up and applaud the genius that is Arrigo Sacchi.