Football in Italy has had a long-lasting reputation for emphasising on tactics but that can be viewed in both a positive and negative way.
Although Italian coaches are praised for their tactical nous and organisational skills, it can be interpreted by non-Italians as being cautious and defensive. In the eyes of romantics and idealists, teams from Italy do not place enough emphasis on skill as well as technique and that the focus on tactics is excessive.
The usually placid Massimiliano Allegri was uncharacteristically livid on Italian television when he was interviewed after his Juventus team dramatically defeated Inter 3-2 on Saturday night in their latest Serie A encounter and he heavily criticised Italy’s obsession with tactics.
In previous media interviews, the 50-year-old would often retort to criticisms of Juve’s often dour football by saying that the result is the only thing that counts, but his outburst post-match displayed another side to the Bianconeri tactician’s character.
“Tonight, the spectacle and football won. This is the most important thing,” Allegri told Sky Sport Italia on Saturday night.
“Football is too much theory, you speak of systems and that’s it. Do you think that in football with technique, tackles, and more, the systems win?
“All right then, lets pay for tactics and say that [Lionel] Messi is worth nothing, [Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Gonzalo] Higuain the same.
“You don’t look at the technical skills but the systems, this is the evil of Italian football.
“Good defensive organisation counts but the champions and the technical skills must be praised.”
There are many ways of interpreting his comments on Sky. Was he tired after watching his team play in such a dramatic 90-minute encounter or was he just frustrated with the line of questioning from pundits Daniele Adani, Gianluca Vialli, and Massimo Ambrosini? Did he have enough acting like Allegri the coach and decided to show the football fan inside of him?
It may seem obscure that Allegri would talk about football as a spectacle instead of prioritising the result in the typical Italian manner.
He did not speak like a coach that had won trophies at AC Milan and Juventus, but like his former coach Giovanni Galeone at Pescara, whose teams were known for their cavalier style of play. At the moment, we saw Allegri the idealist instead of Allegri the pragmatist and it was refreshing to see that side of him.
The Bianconeri are close to sealing their seventh consecutive scudetto and there will be people repeating the Giampiero Boniperti adage that “winning is the only thing that counts at Juventus” but now it is becoming boring and pompous rhetoric. The rest of the football world wants more than results and it seems that the majority of people involved in the Italian game have trouble understanding that.
Pragmatism can only get a team so far but Italian football has declined at club and international level since the 2006 World Cup triumph and the Calciopoli scandal. It is easy to blame a lack of investment going into the sport and the lack of world-class talent emerging but there are other issues with the sport in Italy.
Italians were considered to be the “masters of defence” but the old methods have become outdated and most of the teams that have won in the last decade or so are known for their offensive potency than their defensive solidarity.
Allegri might be succeeding in Serie A with his cautious tactics but he has a strong squad to work with and those tactics have backfired on him in several Champions League campaigns. It is a shame though because his Bianconeri side came close to eliminating Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and they almost atoned for their insipid display in Turin by playing some scintillating football in the second leg in Spain.
Teams that have also tried to implement more conservative tactics this season have not had anywhere the success the Bianconeri have had. Inter struggled when Coach Luciano Spalletti filled his midfield with defensive-minded players but his teams have got impressive wins when he has the right combination of ball-winners and creators in the centre of the park.
Chievo were escaping relegation in previous season thanks to their defensive tactics but now they have been made ineffective and could be relegated at the end of the season. Teams like Napoli, Lazio, Atalanta, and Sampdoria have shown that you can exceed expectations by implementing better attacking strategies and bring the best out of their offensive weapons.
Perhaps Allegri feels that he has had to be conservative to keep his job and gain results but despite what he has achieved domestically, even he could acknowledge that Italy’s fixation with systems over players is unhealthy and it is now holding calcio back.
