I love how on the 70s you could find some honest and classy players like Scirea and Beckenbauer. But on the other side, it was generally allowed to crush people ankles to some point, and watching matches from the 70s I often find myself shocked at some of the tackles, which are bordering direct violence.
yeah, there was something brutal and romantic about defending those days. however beckembauer and scirea weren't exactly coetaneous; kaiser franz played between the 60s and the 70s, while scirea played between the 70s and the 80s.
kanoute said:
and what about Bergomi, lo zio? I'd like to hear about him if/when you've time to tell a thing or two.
oh man what a freak of nature lo zio was! i might start by explaining his nickname: "lo zio" means "the uncle" in italian. legend has it bearzot (italy '82 coach) gave him this nickname, as he was amazed at how a 19 years old kid could show such composure and vision (wich as usually veteran's qualities).
he belongs to the last generation of man markers (wich already gives him a legendary aura). add to that the fact that he also happened to be one of the best man markers that ever graced a football pitch and u can understand why he has such an epic reputation.
to be fair though, bergomi was more than that. he had a great passing game and a regista's vision, wich explains why later in his carrer he turned into a libero (keep in mind, going fromn sideback to libero is a huge change.... it's something much more complicated than going from sideback to centreback, as in the man marking days the libero used to play a completely different game from any other defender).
legends always grow bigger with time, so now most people mention him as a world class libero.... that's not true. he was a very good libero, nothing more than that.... but the fact he was even just able to play in that role with good results is amazing as no other sideback ever played in that position before (nor after).
but whereas as a libero he was just above average, as a rightback he was incredible. think of a player with dani alves stamina, zanetti's acceleration, cafu's shooting and maldini's defending.
the sidebacks had a really hard life in the days of man marking, as they were the ones marking the opponent's supporting strikers and inside forwards (wich were the 2 players who used to cover most ground during the game). and yet despite being assigned with such a weary task, beppe had so much energy and stamina that he often ventured forward. i just checked on wikipedia and apparently he scored 23 goals in his club carreer (+ 6 goals with italy). now 23 goals would already be considered an impressive number in modern football (that's exactly how many goals dani alves scored in his entire carreer)....... but actually it's even more impressive than that. u see modern sidebacks have so much more freedom than 80s sidebacks. man marking means u have to follow "your man" like a shadow for the entire game and shut him down. there's no margin for error (as there's no defensive line) and there's no room for anything else than that in your game, so the mere idea of an "offensive rightback" was ridiculous in those days. sidebacks used to go an entire carreer with 4 or 5 goals in their curricula back then.... and those were "offensive" sidebacks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz5INDC5r_0
but while he was very good offensively, defensively he was simply unplayable. the story of how he turned into a libero might give u an idea of how good a defender he was. it was so impossible to go past him that other teams coaches started saying their supporting strikers to switch sides and attack from the centre (u might call it the "
stay away from bergomi rule"). seeing this was becoming a common pattern and every talented player started avoiding bergomi range, trapattoni (inter coach in the late 80s) moved bergomi to the centre (as a libero), in order to allow him to mark the most threatening offensive player, wherever they were.
for a very short period of time (between 86 and 88) italy displayed the following defensive setup: maldini-baresi-scirea-bergomi. that's pretty much the equivalent of an offensive setup formed by pelè, maradona, messi and cruyff.
oh and btw, he's also a very nice and classy guy.... and quite simply THE best football matches commentator i've ever heard (and i've heard pretty much every english, french, spanish and italian football commentator out there). not a game goes by without me learning something new about the game, whenever he's commenting it...
