Zonal Marking. Michael Cox
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insisting on a compact side, aggressive pressing and, crucially, a 4–4–2.
This proved controversial at Parma, for two reasons. First, he’d inherited the wonderful Gianfranco Zola, a classic number 10 who had finished sixth in the previous year’s Ballon d’Or voting. But Ancelotti refused to change his system to incorporate Zola in his best position, and didn’t believe he could play as one of the two strikers, who were instructed to stretch the play and run in behind. Ancelotti instead deployed Zola awkwardly on the left of a 4–4–2. ‘We are no longer wanted,’ complained Zola, speaking about the plight of trequartisti. ‘At the moment everything is about pressing, doubling up as a marker and work rate.’ He fled to Chelsea, pointedly remarking that he would ‘be able to play in my proper role in England’, and made an instant impact in the Premier League, winning the 1996/97 Football Writers’ Player of the Year award despite only joining in November. His form attracted the attention of new Italy boss Cesare Maldini, who briefly based his Italy side around him, and he also received praise from Baggio, a kindred spirit. ‘I admire Zola, he’s taking brilliant revenge on all his doubters,’ he said. ‘That’s the beauty of football. When you have been written off, you can just as easily rise up again.’
In the summer of 1997, Tanzi was desperate to sign Baggio for Parma, and a contract had been agreed, but Ancelotti vetoed the deal at the last minute. ‘He wanted a regular starting position, and wanted to play behind the strikers, a role that didn’t exist in 4–4–2,’ explained Ancelotti. ‘I’d had just got the team into the Champions League and I had no intention of changing my system of play. I called him up and said, “I’d be delighted to have you on the team, but I have no plans for fielding you regularly. You’d be competing against Enrico Chiesa and Hernán Crespo.”’ Baggio instead signed for Bologna. Ancelotti clearly wasn’t against the idea of signing unpredictable geniuses; he sanctioned the return of Faustino Asprilla, explaining that the difference was because the fiery Colombian was happy to play up front, whereas Baggio and Zola would have demanded a withdrawn role. Ancelotti simply didn’t want a trequartista. It wasn’t merely a very public snub to the country’s most popular footballer; it also cast Ancelotti as an inflexible coach who favoured the system over individuals. ‘I was considered “Ancelotti, the anti-imagination”, give me anything but another number 10!’ he self-deprecatingly remembered. ‘At Parma, I still thought that 4–4–2 was the ideal formation in every case, but that’s not true, and if I had a time machine I’d go back. And I’d take Baggio.’
At this stage, Italian formation notation was slightly confusing. The determination to keep a compact team meant a number 10 was generally considered a third attacker, rather than deserving of his own ‘band’ in the system, and therefore what would be considered a 4–3–1–2 elsewhere was a 4–3–3 in Italy. ‘There are several types of 4–3–3 formation,’ outlined Marcello Lippi. ‘There’s the 4–3–3 formation with a centre-forward and two wingers, the 4–3–3 with two forwards and a player behind, and the 4–3–3 with three proper forwards.’ Lippi considered his later Juventus side, with Zinedine Zidane in support of Alessando Del Piero and Pippo Inzaghi, a 4–3–3 rather than a 4–3–1–2. Therefore, the debate was not necessarily about whether managers would deploy a number 10, but whether they’d deploy any kind of third attacker. Luckily, a couple of managers remained committed to fielding a front three.
An extreme example was Zdenĕk Zeman, Serie A’s most eccentric coach. Zeman was born in Czechoslovakia but as a teenager moved to live with his uncle, Čestmír Vycpálek, who would coach Juventus to two Scudettos in the 1970s. Zeman therefore grew up surrounded by Italian football culture, but he never played professionally, drew inspiration from handball and remained a mysterious outsider. He was a contemporary of Sacchi at Coverciano and the two became kindred spirits, determined to demonstrate that other Italian coaches placed too much emphasis on results. Zeman said he preferred to lose 5–4 than draw 0–0, because that way the supporters had been entertained. It wasn’t a philosophy shared by his contemporaries.
Zeman focused on short passing, zonal defending and developing youngsters. His idol was Ştefan Kovács, who had won two European Cups with Ajax in the early 1970s, and he remained committed to the classic Ajax 4–3–3. But whereas Dutch coaches prescribed touchline-hugging wingers, Zeman’s three-man attack generally comprised three goalscorers, dragging the opposition narrow and opening up space for rampaging full-backs. It was all-out attack.
Zeman performed impressively at Foggia in the early 1990s, before moving to Lazio in 1994, taking the club to second in 1994/95 and third in 1995/96, when his forward trio featured three proper strikers: Alen Bokšić, Pierluigi Casiraghi and the wonderful Giuseppe Signori, who won the Capocannoniere – the title given to Serie A’s top scorer – jointly in 1995/96 with Bari’s Igor Protti. Bokšić then departed for Juventus, so Zeman signed a replacement: Protti, of course. His forward trio now included the two top goalscorers from the previous campaign, although he only lasted midway through 1996/97 before being dismissed. What happened next was somewhat unexpected; Zeman spent the rest of the campaign attending Lazio matches at the Stadio Olimpico, joking that, having frequently been criticised for overseeing a leaky defence, he was assessing how his successor Dino Zoff would fix things. The following season, he was again regularly at the Olimpico, for a very different reason. Now he was coaching Roma.
At Roma, Zeman’s attacking trio offered greater balance. Rather than a trio of outright strikers, Zeman deployed just one, Abel Balbo, flanked by the speedy Paulo Sérgio and a young Francesco Totti, who drifted inside from the left into clever positions between the lines. Zeman’s 4–3–3 became more of a 4–3–1–2, with Totti the number 10.
‘Zemanlandia’, as his style of football became known, exploded into life with Roma’s 6–2 victory over Napoli in early October 1997, an extraordinarily dominant display in which Roma could have reached double figures. Balbo helped himself to a hat-trick, but Roma players were queueing up to provide finishes to their direct passing moves. They subsequently beat Empoli 4–3, Fiorentina 4–1, and both Milan and Brescia 5–0, although their defeats were often heavy too, and traditional Italian coaches particularly enjoyed putting Zeman in his place.
In December Roma lost 3–0 away at a Marco Branca-inspired Inter. ‘Some managers like to play possession football,’ Inter boss Gigi Simoni grinned afterwards. ‘I like to counter-attack. Everyone’s right, so long as they win.’ Zeman, however, insisted he was right even when Roma lost. His team became increasingly attack-minded as the season unfolded, scoring 17 goals in their final five matches to finish fourth, as joint-top scorers alongside champions Juventus. Zeman’s attacking trio provided balance in terms of style and goalscoring contribution: Balbo netted 14 times, Totti 13 and Sérgio 12. Totti also recorded ten assists; this proved to be his breakthrough campaign, and he would dominate Roma for the next two decades.
Roma slipped to sixth place in 1998/99, but again Zeman’s front three sparkled. Balbo had left for Parma, so Zeman promoted the tall, slightly awkward Marco Delvecchio, who managed 18 league goals with Totti and Paulo Sérgio chipping in with 12 apiece from either side. But Zemanlandia became a parody of itself; Roma scored the most goals in Serie A, 65, but conceded 49, more than relegated Vicenza.
The match that summed everything up came four games from the end of the campaign, when Roma hosted an Inter side that hadn’t scored away from home in open play for 700 minutes and had just appointed their fourth manager of the season, the returning, perennially cautious Roy Hodgson. Roma hit four goals, with Totti, Sérgio, Delvecchio and Eusebio Di Francesco all on the scoresheet. But they conceded five. Inter forwards Ronaldo and Iván Zamorano constantly breached Roma’s high defensive line to score two apiece, and then Diego Simeone headed a late winner. Defensive horror shows like this, and the 3–2 loss to Milan, the 3–2 loss to Perugia and the 4–3 loss to Cagliari, meant that Zeman wasn’t considered pragmatic enough to win a title.
Zeman also cemented his outsider status by dramatically accusing Juventus of taking performance-enhancing drugs. Juve doctor Riccardo Agricola was initially given a suspended prison sentence in 2004, then later acquitted. Zeman believes his determination to highlight Serie A’s dark practices hampered him in terms of future