“The inventors of football thought of it as a collective, attack-minded sport. Italians turned it into an individual, defence-minded one”
You have just been made Milan manager, but there’s the biggest of elephants in the room. You’re only 41 years old, you’ve never managed in Serie A, and the highlight of your playing career was a handful of semi-professional appearances a little more than two decades ago.
Before you stand Marco van Basten and Ballon d’Or favourite Ruud Gullit, who has just been made the most expensive footballer in history. The assembled journalists want to know: what can you possibly teach two of the world’s finest players – plus Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Carlo Ancelotti and more besides – about football?
You smile, and dryly state: “I never realised that to become a jockey you needed to be a horse first.”
What Arrigo Sacchi achieved in four Rossoneri campaigns, from 1987 to 1991 would be unthinkable today. The follicly challenged former shoe salesman went from obscurity to masterminding club football’s greatest ever side (as stated by UEFA in 2015). His Milan won Serie A, two consecutive European Cups, two European Super Cups and two Intercontinental Cups. With Italy, he was a Roberto Baggio shootout penalty away from making the Azzurri world champions in 1994.
Over the course of 90 minutes with FFT, Sacchi continues to defend his vision passionately. A systematic high press, defending and attacking with 11 players, zonal marking, a suicidally high offside line – if these concepts seem familiar, it’s due to an innovating, football-obsessed heretic known as the Prophet of Fusignano.
Who inspired you to coach and manage in the manner you did?
Ilyas Najib, via Facebook Many people and no one, at the same time. My role model, as such, was beauty; I was inspired by emotions and the pleasure of beautiful football. I’ve always believed in dominating games, keeping the initiative and playing entertaining and fascinating football. Dominating games would improve our players’ self-esteem; quick ball recoveries would depress our opponents. Victory is a consequence of all of these things. For me, football is something philosophical: I wanted each of my 11 players to be actively participating on the pitch, taking care of all aspects of the game together. Distances between players had to be right, pressing had to be intense and movements without the ball clever. This was my idea of collective football.
How tough was it to break into management with no qualifications?
It’s wrong to think that football players can or become managers. That applied to medieval singers, who would pass on their job and songs from father to son, until eventually they disappeared from view. Football needs new inputs, new ideas, and has to strive for continuous development; otherwise, it’s just stagnation.
