before it started. In his first months, the Milan old guard were
suspicious and defenders like Franco Baresi and Mauro Tassotti found it difficult to understand what was being asked of them. In the autumn of 1987, when Milan were knocked out of the UEFA Cup and
lost a league game at home to Fiorentina, the atmosphere turned mutinous. ‘Every body thought Sacchi was finished, but then Berlusconi made his famous intervention. He goes to the dressing
room and says to the players: “I want you to know that Sacchi is the trainer for this year and also for next year. As for you guys, I don’t know.” Then everything
changed.’
Italians in general, and Italian trainers in particular, are cynical, Pellizzari observes. They rarely think about aesthetics and care only about results. ‘The real revolution of Sacchi
was not that The Zone game looked good but that it
worked
. Sacchi showed you can win this way. That’s why one of our great football writers, Mario Sconcerti, says that Sacchi is for
Italian football what Kant is for philosophy: there is before Sacchi and after Sacchi. He changed us and all Italian coaches now are his heirs. Actually, I don’t think Sacchi invented
anything. He borrowed it from Holland. But he is treated as if he was the inventor because nobody imagined we could play this way in Italy before.’ Even so, there is still resistance to Total
Football. ‘Earlier this year a journalist called Michele Dalai wrote a book about why he hates Barcelona’s football. It was called
Against Tiki-Taka
and it did quite well. He
doesn’t like Barça’s passing, pressing and attacking. He calls that “masturbation football”. He wants to score one goal, then defend.’
Meanwhile, back in the early 1990s, Inter were in trouble. After Trapattoni left for Juventus in 1991, Inter president Ernesto Pellegrini, painfully aware of the superiority of Milan, tried to
replicate Berlusconi’s revolution. He lighted upon Corrado Orrico, another philosophical coach, who had brought attacking football to Lucchese in Serie B. But Orrico was no Sacchi, and the
Inter old guard, not least key defenders Giuseppe Bergomi and Riccardo Ferri, were unimpressed. Orrico failed and was replaced by the veteran Osvaldo Bagnoli, a much-loved, old-fashioned coach
best-known for winning the championship with outsiders Verona in 1985.
By the time Dennis Bergkamp had decided to leave Ajax and half of Europe and all the top Italian clubs wanted him, the picture had shifted once more. Sacchi was now running the Italian national
team and his successor Fabio Capello, while keeping most of Sacchi’s tactics and squad, had made Milan less flamboyant but impossible to beat. Between May 1991 and March 1993 Capello’s
team pre-emptively eclipsed Arsenal’s Invincibles by going a staggering 58 games without defeat. By the beginning of the 1993-94 season, though, their Dutch trio was no more. Ageing Ruud
Gullit had fallen out of favour and gone to Sampdoria, Rijkaard had returned to Ajax, and Van Basten’s career was nearing its premature end because of his injured ankle. Pellegrini spotted an
opportunity. Inter had finished the 1992-93 season second to champions Milan. Surely a sprinkling of magic from the Netherlands would be enough to win back the title? Inter went a-wooing and soon
Dennis Bergkamp and Wim Jonk were posing for photographers in their new black and blue shirts. The Italian press hailed the signings as a
nerazzurro
masterstroke.
* * *
O F ALL THE GIN JOINTS in all the towns in all the world, Dennis, you walk Inter theirs?! You were the hottest young talent in Europe! Everyone wanted
you! You could have gone to Barcelona, or Milan, or Juventus. Yet you picked the world headquarters of defensive football. It’s still hard to understand.
Dennis: ‘Well, promises were made and it felt like the right move. I think there’s been a thread running through my life which is that I’ve made a lot of big decisions on
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