Читать книгу Calcio: A History of Italian Football - John Foot - Страница 78

Real catenaccio began in Switzerland, in the 1930s, with a coach called Karl Rappan. The original idea was a simple one: add a defender and take away an attacker. His system became known as verrou – padlock – which in Italian became catenaccio. Since most teams played with three centre-forwards at that time, and used man-to-man marking, once a striker had beaten the defence, he was usually clean through on goal. Rappan decided to try to put a stop to this. He removed a forward, and added a defender, who played behind the existing backs and did not have someone specific to mark. This was revolutionary. For the first time, a defender was asked to mark space, and not a particular player. This defender would ‘sweep up’ behind the others – hence the name given to this defender, sweeper or, in Italian, libero (the free one).

Catenaccio ‘overturned the traditional dualism between the marker and the marked, and gave teams a strong defensive pattern’.⁴ If someone beat the centre-backs, they had the sweeper to deal with, who would often simply clear the ball. Sweepers had to be strong but clean in the tackle (as they were often in the area, a foul would mean a penalty), intelligent (they had to predict what would happen next) and, although this was not essential, be good long passers of the ball. Rappan’s new model brought immediate success, especially at the 1938 World Cup where Switzerland beat both Germany and Austria.