 Mondonico as manager ofAtalanta in the 1990s | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1947-03-09)9 March 1947 | ||
| Place of birth | Rivolta d'Adda, Italy | ||
| Date of death | 29 March 2018(2018-03-29) (aged 71) | ||
| Place of death | Milan, Italy | ||
| Position | Winger | ||
| Youth career | |||
| Rivoltana | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1966–1968 | Cremonese | 46 | (19) |
| 1968–1970 | Torino | 14 | (2) |
| 1970–1971 | Monza | 23 | (7) |
| 1971–1972 | Atalanta | 2 | (0) |
| 1972–1979 | Cremonese | 178 | (69) |
| Total | 263 | (97) | |
| Managerial career | |||
| 1982–1986 | Cremonese | ||
| 1986–1987 | Como | ||
| 1987–1990 | Atalanta | ||
| 1990–1994 | Torino | ||
| 1994–1998 | Atalanta | ||
| 1998–2000 | Torino | ||
| 2000–2001 | Napoli | ||
| 2001–2003 | Cosenza | ||
| 2003–2004 | Fiorentina | ||
| 2006–2007 | AlbinoLeffe | ||
| 2007–2009 | Cremonese | ||
| 2009–2011 | AlbinoLeffe | ||
| 2012 | Novara | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Emiliano Mondonico (9 March 1947 – 29 March 2018) was an Italian professionalfootballer andcoach. He played as awinger.
His playing career was spent mostly withCremonese, where it began and ended. Mondonico's 31-year-long managerial career included two spells each at Cremonese,Atalanta,Torino andAlbinoLeffe. With Torino, he reached the final of the1991–92 UEFA Cup and won the1992–93 Coppa Italia.
Mondonico grew up playing in the youth team of Rivoltana, an amateur team in his hometown ofRivolta d'Adda in theProvince of Cremona.[1] In 1966 he was signed byCremonese, with whom he played one season inSerie D and one season inSerie C.[2] In the 1968–69 season, he made hisSerie A debut withTorino. After two seasons with theGranata, he moved toMonza inSerie B, before returning to Serie A withAtalanta in the 1971–72 season.[2] He later returned to Cremonese where he ended his playing career after seven seasons disputed between Serie B and Serie C in 1979.[2]
Mondonico began his managerial career with the Cremonese youth team in 1979.[3] In 1982, he became manager of the senior team, and in 1984, achieved a historic promotion to Serie A with Cremonese.
In 1987, he moved toAtalanta, and guided them to the semi-finals of the1987–88 European Cup Winners' Cup.[4]
In 1990, he joinedTorino, where he won theMitropa Cup overPisa and finished in fifth-place in the league during the1990–91 season.[5] The following year, he led Torino to a historicUEFA Cup final during the1991–92 season, lost on aggregate toAFC Ajax. After Torino were disallowed a penalty, Mondonico famously lifted up a chair into the air in a sign of protest against the referee.[6] En route to the final, Torino also overcameReal Madrid in the semi-final.[7] In the1992–93 season, he won the1993 Coppa Italia Final againstRoma.[4]
In 1994, he returned to Atalanta for a second time, and later had a second spell with Torino as well between 1998 and 2000, before coachingNapoli during the 2000–01 season, although he was unable to help the club avoid relegation to Serie B.[2][8]
After a two-year spell withCosenza, he later joinedFiorentina in 2003, and the following year, he led the club back into Serie A for the first time since their demotion toSerie C2, following their bankruptcy in 2002; he subsequently had a stint withAlbinoLeffe in Serie B in 2006, before returning to Cremonese the following year for a third time.[2][5][8]
In September 2009, Mondonico was appointed as head coach of AlbinoLeffe once again to replaceArmando Madonna.[9] He stepped down as head coach of AlbinoLeffe on 29 January 2011 due to "serious health issues", with his assistantDaniele Fortunato taking over on an interim basis.[10][11] Two days later, his club confirmed he had undergone abdominal surgery, expecting him to recover in a few weeks time.[12][13] On 15 February, after a full recovery, Mondonico officially returned to his coaching duties at AlbinoLeffe.[14][15] He guided AlbinoLeffe to narrowly escape relegation after defeatingPiacenza in the playoffs, but on 13 June he held an emotional press conference to announce that the illness had returned during the final period of the season and that he was seriously considering stepping down as a consequence.[16] On 17 June 2011, Mondonico was confirmed to have resigned from AlbinoLeffe in order to focus solely on cancer treatment; he was replaced by his assistant Daniele Fortunato, who had already undertaken the first team coaching duties during his previous sick leave.[17][18]
On 30 January 2012, Mondonico marked his Serie A comeback, replacingAttilio Tesser as head coach ofNovara, who were last-placed in the Italian top flight and seven points shy of relegation safety after the first half of the season.[19] On 6 March 2012 he was sacked.[20]
Mondonico was a pragmatic coach, who used a counter-attacking style based on obtaining results rather than ball possession; he was a proponent of thegioco all'italiana orzona mista style, which was inspired bycatenaccio, but which blended elements ofman-to-man andzonal marking systems. He was known for his balanced approach in attack and defence, with his teams often defending deep behind the ball and attacking collectively. Moreover, his teams were known for their tenacity and work-rate. He also stood out for his ability to express his tactical ideas in a simple manner. His attacking play was based on the mobility of his teams'forwards. His favoured formations were the4–4–2 and the5–3–2 or3–5–2, although he also used the3–4–3; he even used the4–2–3–1 and the4–3–3 on occasion throughout his career. During his successful spell at Torino, he also used a3–4–2–1 formation, with asweeper, two man-markingcentre-backs, andwing-backs in lieu ofwide midfielders.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] He also used Braziliancentre-forwardWalter Casagrande in a role known as the "centravanti di manovra" (which literally translates to "manoeuvring centre-forward") in Italian football jargon, a precursor to the modernfalse-nine role, in which he was seemingly positioned as a lone striker, but dropped deep to help his team and be involved in the build-up, rather than looking to score goals.[30] His style of coaching contrasted with that of the more offensive–mindedArrigo Sacchi andZdeněk Zeman, who also coached in Italy during his career.[31]
Mondonico died at the age of 71 on 29 March 2018, fromstomach cancer.[2][4][5][8][32]
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