Hours after Sampdoria brought back memories of the illustrious late 1980s/early 1990s era by netting two goals in the dying minutes against Chievo, Vujadin Boskov, the man behind that era of success sadly passed away aged 82, just three weeks before his 83rd birthday.
Boskov’s death sent shockwaves through the media. The Serbian coach was nothing short of outstanding. When he was appointed in 1986, Sampdoria had already been in Serie A for four seasons, but he did wonders.
In short, Boskov achieved the impossible with a club like Sampdoria, who in 1986 had only been around 44 years. Sampdoria were a result of a merger between Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria, hence forming the name ‘Sampdoria’. They’d been living in the shadow of neighbours Genoa for almost all their history until Boskov took charge.
Roman oil magnate Paolo Mantovani bought the Genoese club while they were in Serie B back in 1979 and Il Doria won promotion to Serie A in 1981-82 under the guidance of Renzo Ulivieri.
After the club gained promotion to Serie A, Mantovani was slowly building-up a competitive team for the Italian top flight. He bought emerging striker Roberto Mancini from Bologna and foreign stars Trevor Francis and Liam Brady.
Year after year, Mantovani would add more young Italian talent such as Fausto Pari, Pietro Vierchowod and Gianluca Vialli to the roster. The club had won their first Coppa Italia in 1985 under former Inter coach Eugenio Bersellini, but in the following season they finished eleventh, four points off the drop zone. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
Before the Serbian became indulged in calcio, he was anything but an unknown quantity. Boskov was born on May 16, 1931 in a village called Begec, which is 15 km from Novi Sad, in what was then known as Yugoslavia.
He joined Vojvodina Novi Sad in 1946 and he won his first cap for Yugoslavia in 1951. Boskov won 57 caps for the Yugoslav national team without scoring any goals. He was also one of the few Yugoslav internationals who did not play for either Red Star Belgrade, Partizan Belgrade, Dinamo Zagreb and Hadjuk Split, the ‘big four’ of Yugoslav football.
Predominantly a left-half in the old WM formation, Boskov played at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics in which Yugoslavia lost 2-0 to ‘The Magic Magyars’, and he played in the 1954 and 1958 World Cups for the Yugoslavs. On both occasions, the Yugoslavs were knocked-out by the West Germans in the quarter-finals.
After finishing his playing career with Vojvodina in 1960, Boskov played a season in Serie A with Sampdoria. His playing career with the Blucerchiati was a short one, playing only 13 times and scoring the one goal. Happier days for Boskov and the Doriani were yet to come and so he finished his playing days with Swiss club Young Boys, in which he was also player-coach.
Boskov started full-time coaching with Vojvodina and with the Yugoslav national team. He moved abroad in 1974 and took over the reigns at Ado Den Haag, winning one of the two KNVB Cup successes the club have achieved up to date. After a short two year stint at Dutch giants Feyenoord, Boskov was appointed as coach of Spanish outfit Real Zaragoza before moving onto Real Madrid where he won the league and cup double in 1979/80.
Boskov first was appointed as coach of Ascoli, who were then plying their trade in Serie A, but after a dismal season the Picchio finished third from bottom and faced relegation. However, Boskov stuck with the Stadio Del Duca and managed to get the club promoted back to Serie A again, finishing top of the Serie B table.
Despite achieving promotion with the Picchio, Boskov’s recurring theme of not staying more than two seasons with a club saw him appointed coach of the Blucerchiati.
Fortunes were about to change however, and in Boskov’s first season in charge the club finished in fifth tied on points with AC Milan. Despite Samp’s superior goal difference, both clubs played a play-off game in Turin where the winner would qualify to the UEFA Cup. Sadly for the Blucerchiati, they lost the play-off 1-0 courtesy of Daniele Massaro’s towering header eleven minutes into the first half.
Boskov faced a tougher challenge in the following season, and he was up to it. Sampdoria hadn’t won a Coppa Italia before the triumph in 1985, and in 1987/88 they had reached the final against Torino. In the first leg at the Stadio Ferraris, Hans-Peter Briegel and Gianluca Vialli both scored in a 2-0 win putting Samp in pole position to win the competition, and they did, though rather arduously.
Five minutes into the second leg in Turin, Pietro Vierchwood scored an own goal before Antonio Paganin scored another own goal 30 minutes later. With full time ending 2-0, the game went into extra time. Seven minutes into the second half of extra-time, Fausto Salsano produced a moment of magic to take the aggregate score to 3-2. Sampdoria were champions, thanks to a bit of luck and the guidance of Boskov.
In the following season, Sampdoria reached another level, they were in the final, of the now extinct, UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. After winning another Coppa Italia, this time 4-1 on aggregate against Diego Maradona’s Napoli, Boskov’s men were up against Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona in the Wankdorf Stadium in Berlin. However, the Catalans won the game 2-0. The loss only did the group good, and they came back stronger in the following season.
In 1989/90, Sampdoria were again in the Cup Winners’ Cup Final, this time against Belgian giants Anderlecht. However, after a goalless 90 minutes, the game went into extra time. Vialli scored just before the interval to give Samp the lead, before he doubled his tally, and the scoreline, to make it 2-0 three minutes into the second half of extra time to send the fans into rapture.
Boskov had achieved two Coppa Italia wins and a UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup victory, but they were in search of the Holy Grail… A Scudetto. After all, the last time Sampdoria achieved anything of note in Serie A, they were still by the name of Sampierdarenese and finished runners-up in 1921-22.
In 1990-91, Sampdoria won their first and only title by finishing five points clear of Arrigo Sacchi’s all-conquering Milan side. The Blucerchiati only lost three games all season. Boskov’s men had the second-strongest defence, and the most prolific attack with Gianluca Vialli also winning the Capocannoniere.
The decisive match was Il Doria’s 2-0 win away over Giovanni Trapattoni’s Inter in Round 31. Inter defender Giuseppe Bergomi and Samp’s Mancini were sent-off on the stroke of half-time. The Nerazzurri dominated possession throughout the game but a long-range strike from Giuseppe Dossena broke the deadlock and Vialli sealed the win by dribbling around Walter Zenga for the second goal. Sandwiched in between the goals was Gianluca Pagliuca’s penalty save from Inter’s German midfielder Lothar Matthaeus.
Sampdoria sealed the title at home in Round 33 with a 3-0 triumph over Lecce. First-half goals from Toninho Cerezo, Moreno Mannini and Vialli were enough for the victory. A certain Antonio Conte was playing for the Salentini on that day and he received a red card before half-time.
After bagging a Suppercoppa Italiana at the start of the season, Sampdoria were in for a European Cup season.
Boskov’s men were a handful with their counterattacking game and reached the final having defeated reigning champions Red Star Belgrade on the way. This time their opponents at Wembley Stadium were Barcelona. Both sides were then in search for their first European Cup. Eight minutes from time, Barcelona provided the coup-de-grace through a magnificent Ronald Koeman free-kick. Boskov’s men had tried, but in the end stumbled at the final hurdle.
Boskov left the Blucerchiati after 1991-92, but his legacy would provide a moment which could be argued as one of the most significant in recent Italian football history.
While he was coach of Sampdoria, he developed a reputation for providing some amusing quotes, some of them being blatantly obvious. Here are some of Boskov’s finest quotes:
“It’s a penalty when the referee whistles.”
“I think that if you have to score, you need to hit the target.”
“The match finishes when the referee whistles.”
“A 2-0 is a 2-0, and when you make [the score] 2-0, you win.”
“The squad that wins the scudetto is the one with the most points.”
“Who does not shoot on target does not score.”
“To see Sampdoria play is like listening to beautiful music.”
“If I untied my dog, he would play better than [Genoa midfielder Jose] Perdomo.
“I did not say that Perdomo plays like my dog. I said that he can play football only in the park at my villa with my dog.”
In 1992/93, Boskov, now coach of Roma, gave a 16-year-old Francesco Totti his debut in Serie A.
On March 28, 1993, Totti appeared as a substitute in an away win at the Stadio Mario Rigamonti against Brescia, where Roma won 2-0. The Giallorossi had scored two first-half goals courtesy of Argentine international Claudio Caniggia and a trademark free-kick from Boskov’s compatriot Sinisa Mihajlovic.
Totti replaced forward Ruggiero Rizzitelli for the last three minutes of the match but the young Roman would have to wait until the 1994-95 Serie A season for his first league goal.
Since then, Francesco Totti has gone on to become one of the greatest players Serie A and the world has ever seen. Despite being offered several lucrative contracts from the likes of Real Madrid and Milan, Totti has always stuck to his boyhood club.
Napoli were the next club to hire Boskov and he coached the Partenopei from 1994 to 1996. He was reunited with former Samp players Pari and Renato Buso, and they finished seventh, missing out on UEFA Cup qualification.
In that time, Boskov coached future Sheffield Wednesday star Benito Carbone and his trickery prompted the Serbian coach to produce another fine quote.
“Benny Carbone with his feints disorientate opponents but also his teammates,” said Boskov.
His other club stints included coaching Swiss team Servette, a return to Sampdoria in 1997-98 and a spell at Perugia. Boskov then coached the Yugoslav national team again at Euro 2000, taking them to the quarter-finals, only for his team to be thrashed 6-1 by co-hosts the Netherlands.
He passed away after long battle with illness on the weekend but Vujadin Boskov will forever be remembered in the folklore of Calcio and be remembered as a man whose influence reigned over Calcio many years after he left it.
Follow Ahmed Assem and Vito Doria on Twitter: @CalcioTown and @VitoCDoria
