 Bearzot c. 1975 depicted on aPanini football card | |||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Enzo Bearzot[1] | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1927-09-26)26 September 1927 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Aiello del Friuli, Italy | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 21 December 2010(2010-12-21) (aged 83) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Milan, Italy | ||||||||||||||||
| Position | Defensive midfielder | ||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
| 1946–1948 | Pro Gorizia | 39 | (2) | ||||||||||||||
| 1948–1951 | Internazionale | 19 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 1951–1954 | Catania | 95 | (5) | ||||||||||||||
| 1954–1956 | Torino | 65 | (1) | ||||||||||||||
| 1956–1957 | Internazionale | 27 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 1957–1964 | Torino | 164 | (7) | ||||||||||||||
| Total | 409 | (15) | |||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1955 | Italy | 1 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| Managerial career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1964–1967 | Torino (youth) | ||||||||||||||||
| 1968–1969 | Prato | ||||||||||||||||
| 1969–1975 | Italy U23 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1975–1986 | Italy | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||
Enzo BearzotGrande Ufficiale OMRI (Italian pronunciation:[ˈɛntsobearˈtsɔt,-ˈdzɔt];[2][3] 26 September 1927 – 21 December 2010) was an Italian professionalfootball player and manager. Adefender andmidfielder in his playing career, he also coached theItaly national team to victory in the1982 FIFA World Cup.
NicknamedVecio (standard Italianvecchio, 'old man'),[4] Bearzot coached the Italy national team the most (104 times, between September 1975 to June 1986).[5] He was noted for his phlegmatic personality and pipe smoking.[6]
A year after his death, an award was named in honour of the 1982 World Cup winning coach, the "Enzo Bearzot Award", for the best Italian coach of the year.[7]
Born inAiello del Friuli, in theFriulianProvince of Udine inFriuli-Venezia Giulia, Bearzot was son of abank teller and attended high school atUdine.[8]
Enzo Bearzot made his debut in professional football withPro Gorizia in 1946, a team he left in 1948 to joinInternazionale.After three seasons with theNerazzurri, Bearzot moved to Sicily and joinedCatania for three more seasons.
In 1954, he moved toTorino, which was rebuilding after the tragedy ofSuperga in 1949. In two seasons as a starter he played 65 matches, scoring one goal. In 1956 he returned to Internazionale where he appeared 27 times, the last of which was a 3–2 defeat at Bologna on 9 June 1957. The following year he returned to Torino. Here, he made 164 appearances and scored 7 goals for theGranata before retiring in 1964, aged 37, to take up coaching.
In his playing career, Bearzot totalled 251 appearances in Italy'sSerie A, being called up once to play forItaly, making his debut on 27 November 1955 in a 2–0 1955–56Central European International Cup match defeat toHungary.[9]
After having ended his playing career, Bearzot became assistant coach of Torino, working alongside Italian managersNereo Rocco andGiovan Battista Fabbri. He successively moved in Tuscany to take his first head coaching job in Tuscany at the helm ofSerie C sidePrato.
However, Bearzot did not go on a club career, and chose instead to start working for theItalian Football Federation: first as under-23 head coach, then as assistant coach ofFerruccio Valcareggi in the1974 FIFA World Cup. After the German World Cup, Bearzot was appointed as assistant coach ofFulvio Bernardini, and was then promoted head coach of Italy in 1975. Bearzot drove the national team to fourth place in the1978 FIFA World Cup.[10] This performance was repeated in the1980 European Championship, hosted by Italy.[10]
In the1982 FIFA World Cup, after poor performances in the three first matches, Bearzot announced the so-calledsilenzio stampa (press silence) in order to avoid rising criticism from the Italian press. Following that, the Italian team finally started to play its best football, defeatingArgentina andBrazil (seeItaly v Brazil (1982 FIFA World Cup)) in the second round,Poland in the semi-final andGermany in theFinal, and winning the World Cup for the first time since 1938.[10]
Italy did not qualify for theEuro 1984.[10] Bearzot resigned after the1986 FIFA World Cup, which saw Italy being defeated in the round of 16 byFrance.[10] Bearzot was criticised during the latter tournament for relying too heavily on players from the 1982 team, as some of them were past their best form by 1986.[10]
He holds therecord for the most times on the bench as manager of Italy, with 104 appearances.[11][12]
After a long period of inactivity, Bearzot was appointed President of the FIGC Technical Sector (Settore Tecnico, the main football coaching organization of Italy) in 2002. He left this office in 2005.
Bearzot was highly regarded for his tactical prowess, meticulousness, and versatility as a manager. He often studied his opponents in great detail before matches, in order to plan out and prepare his team's strategy; he was also known for his ability to adopt different tactics, formations, and playing styles, depending on the style of play of the opposition, and for having the capacity to find a system which best suited his players. At the same time, he preferred not to impose set plays and tactical plans on his players, as he believed that above all, they should have the freedom to express their ability and individual talent. At the 1978 World Cup, his Italian side often adopted an attractive, offensive-minded possession game based on passing, creativity, movement, attacking flair, and technique, due to the individual skill of his players; the front three – made up of centre-forward Paolo Rossi, and wingersRoberto Bettega andFranco Causio – would also often change positions with one another, in order to disorient the opposing defenders.
At the1982 World Cup, he usually used a fluid4–3–3 formation, which was capable of shifting into a4–4–2, 5–2–3, or3–5–2 formation throughout the course of a match; in his 4–3–3 system, Bearzot usually used two creativewingers (usuallyBruno Conti andFrancesco Graziani, the latter of whom usually also served as asecond striker) and acentre-forward (usuallyPaolo Rossi) up-front, aplaymaker (usuallyGiancarlo Antognoni) and two hard–tacklingbox-to-box players (usuallyMarco Tardelli and eitherGabriele Oriali orGianpiero Marini – the latter two of whom usually operated in more of aholding role, while the former served as amezzala) inmidfield, while indefence, he used asweeper (usuallyGaetano Scirea) in front of thegoalkeeper, whose responsibilities were both defensive and creative, as well as either three man-marking defenders, or two attackingfull-backs and a man-markingcentre-back orstopper; his team's defensive play was based on thezona mista system (or "Gioco all'Italiana"), a cross betweenzonal marking andman-marking systems, such ascatenaccio.
In Italy's second round match againstBrazil, Bearzot further demonstrated his tactical astuteness by changing Italy's formation in order to contain the Brazilian midfield and prevent them from dominating the match with their possession game. In the final against Germany, due to an injury to playmaker Antognoni in midfield, he also altered Italy's formation to a 5–2–3, by instead fieldingClaudio Gentile as an additional man-marking centre-back, who would help left wing-backAntonio Cabrini to cover Germany's winger,Pierre Littbarski, while Cabrini would mark Germany's attacking right back,Manfred Kaltz; Italy's other two man-marking centre-backs,Fulvio Collovati andGiuseppe Bergomi, were dealt with the task of marking wing forwardKarl-Heinz Rummenigge, and centre-forwardKlaus Fischer respectively, while the sweeper, Scirea, was given the freedom to help double mark forwards, advance into midfield in order to win the ball and start attacking plays, or get forward. Due to the versatility of his players and their tendency to switch positions throughout matches, Bearzot's side were known for their ability to exploit spaces in the opposition; his team's defensive strength was demonstrated by his players' ability to cover for each other and anticipate their opponents in order to win back the ball. His side were also highly adept at subsequently creating goalscoring opportunities from quick and highly organised counterattacks after winning back possession, as well as being capable of keeping the ball and circulating possession in order to conserve energy.
In addition to his skills as a tactician, Bearzot was also known for having a close relationship with his individual players, as well as for his ability to motivate them, create a united team environment, and foster a winning mentality.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] In his obituary for Bearzot inThe Guardian following the manager's death in 2010, Brian Glanville noted that "...Enzo Bearzot ... revitalised the national side. He imposed a far more flexible, adventurous style of play and led the team to victory at the World Cup in Spain in 1982."[15]
Bearzot was married to Luisa; together they had a son Glauco, and a daughter, Cinzia.[15]
Bearzot died on 21 December 2010[15] inMilan at the age of 83, exactly 42 years afterVittorio Pozzo;[21] he was buried in the family tomb in the cemetery ofPaderno d'Adda.[22][23][24][25]
Catania
Torino
Italy
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