 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1909-09-13)13 September 1909 | ||
| Place of birth | Treviso, Italy | ||
| Date of death | 6 January 1969(1969-01-06) (aged 59) | ||
| Place of death | Ferrara, Italy | ||
| Position | Midfielder | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1926–1928 | Treviso | 21 | (10) |
| 1928–1934 | Ambrosiana | 137 | (11) |
| 1934–1938 | Lazio | 114 | (1) |
| 1938–1939 | Livorno | 27 | (0) |
| 1939–1940 | Juventus | 5 | (0) |
| 1940–1942 | Siracusa | ||
| 1942–1943 | Salernitana | ||
| Managerial career | |||
| Siracusa | |||
| 1945–1946 | Benevento | ||
| 1946–1948 | Salernitana | ||
| 1948–1949 | Lucchese | ||
| 1949–1951 | Palermo | ||
| 1951–1952 | Roma | ||
| 1952–1956 | Bologna | ||
| 1956–1965 | A.C. Milan | ||
| 1958 | Hellas Verona | ||
| 1960 | Italy | ||
| 1968 | Bologna | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Giuseppe "Gipo" Viani (13 September 1909 – 6 January 1969) was an Italianfootball player and manager from theProvince of Treviso who played as amidfielder.
Viani was bornTreviso. He played his entire career in theItalian football system; he is best known for his time withAmbrosiana andLazio.[1]
After retiring from playing, Viani went on to manage many Italian football clubs, includingA.C. Milan,Roma and theItaly national team amongst others; he coached Italy at the1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, alongsideNereo Rocco, helping the team to a fourth-place finish in the tournament.[2][3][4]
During his time with Salernitana in the 1940s, Viani devised a tactical system which came to be known in the Italian media as 'vianema', which was influenced byKarl Rappan'sverrou, and which in turn also inspired the Italiancatenaccio defensive strategy later popularised by Rocco andHelenio Herrera. The system originated from an idea that one of the club's players – Antonio Valese – posed to the manager. Viani altered the EnglishWM system – known as thesistema in Italy – by having hiscentre-half-back – known as thecentromediano metodista or "metodista," in Italy – retreat into the defensive line to act as an additional defender and mark an opposingcentre-forward, instead leaving hisfull-back (which, at the time, was similar to the moderncentre-back role) free to function as what was essentially a precursor to thesweeper role, creating a 1–3–3–3 formation; he occasionally also used a defender in the centre-forward role, and wearing thenumber nine shirt, to track back and mark the opposing forwards, thus freeing up the full-backs form their marking duties. His team would defend behind the ball and subsequently look to score from counter–attacks. Although this ultra-defensive strategy was initially criticised by members of the Italian press, including journalistGianni Brera, Andrea Schianchi ofLa Gazzetta dello Sport notes that this modification was designed to help smaller teams in Italy, as the man–to–man system often put players directly against one another, favouring the larger and wealthier teams with stronger individual players.[5][6][4][7][8][9]
Inter Milan
Salernitana
Roma
Milan
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