Thursday, July 08, 2021
1-0 to the Azzurri, Part 3
The Italian team that Enzo Bearzot took to Argentina in 1978 had a number of new faces. The old guard - Riva, Rivera, Mazzola, Facchetti, even Fabio Capello - had made way for a group of players in their early-to-mid-twenties who were, on the whole, far more attack-minded. Representative of this tendency was the fine sweeper Gaetano Scirea of Juventus, who ventured upfield far more often than his predecessors. Another player who forced his way into the team just before the competition was the left-back Antonio Cabrini, who was similarly keen to link up with the forwards.
It was still a man-marking-and-sweeper system, but with greater flexibility and enterprise; positive catenaccio, if you like. And although there was no schemer with the elegance and range of passing of a Gianni Rivera, Bearzot had a promising young midfield general in Giancarlo Antognoni and a springer of surprise in Franco Causio, one of the few survivors from 1974. There were also two genuine goalscoring forwards in the astute Roberto Bettega and the energetic young Paolo Rossi.
Causio, nicknamed "The Baron" for his aristocratic bearing and his stylish play, was something of an enigma. Capable of winning a game almost single-handedly with his incisive dribbling and passing, as he did in a crucial qualifier against England in late 1976, he could also be wretchedly ineffective at times if his form and mood were down.
As in the knockout stage of the 1970 tournament, it was an early goal scored against the Azzurri which brought the best out of them. A very early goal this time, scored in less than a minute by France in their opening game, when Didier Six crossed from the left for Bernard Lacombe to glance a header past Dino Zoff. Italy recovered to win 2-1, playing with great skill and character. In the following game against Hungary, whose two best players were suspended after being sent off in the opener against Argentina, Italy were dominant from the outset. Bettega and Rossi combined superbly up front, and, but for some wasteful finishing, the final score could have been far more impressive than just 3-1.
In their final group match, against the hosts Argentina, Italy played steadily intelligent, measured football to pull off a surprise 1-0 win; Bettega scored the only goal. The Azzurri had been far and away the most impressive team of the opening stage, winning all three games in the competition's toughest group.
In the second stage, Bearzot's men began to look a little tired. They were held to a 0-0 draw by an unimpressive but resilient West Germany, but in their next game against Austria, they went into an early lead, Rossi characteristically taking advantage of some slackness in the Austrian defence. 1-0 to the Azzurri, once again.
Old habits die hard. Italy, for the first time in the competition, went back into their historic crouch. This time, they did manage to hold on to their lead until the final whistle; partly because, like Sweden in 1970, the Austrians made very little of their shots from distance. The midfielder Eduard Krieger tried his luck a couple of times in the second half, but Zoff was hardly extended. So the tight man-marking did its job, and Italy faced Holland in the vital match in Buenos Aires.
Causio had been very ordinary against Austria, misplacing passes, trying tricks which didn't come off, and generally looking unhappy with himself. But such was his importance to the team at this stage that Bearzot was clearly unlikely to omit him from the encounter with the Dutch. And it was to be a very different Causio against Holland.
In short, Italy bossed the first half, and Causio was at the centre of everything. The Baron was playing in true aristocratic style, and the Dutch had no answer to him. The opening Italian goal should have been decisive: not only was it a painful own goal, but it resulted in an injury to the Dutch keeper Piet Schrijvers, who had to be replaced by the veteran Jan Jongbloed, Holland's mercurial 1974 keeper.
1-0 to the Azzurri at half-time. Although they had slowed down somewhat after the goal, they had undoubtedly kept the upper hand. But now Bearzot made an absolutely extraordinary decision. He took Causio off.
It made no sense. The man who had been keeping the Dutch on the back foot for most of the first half...removed? But it was 1-0, late in the competition, Italy had run out of steam in the second half against Austria, Causio's brilliance might not have lasted, and the coach felt it was time for the crouch again. So the much less incisive Claudio Sala came on for the Baron, and Italy began to crowd around their own penalty area.
And all might have been well, but for one salient fact: as they perhaps should have remembered from 1974, the Dutch were awfully dangerous when shooting from distance.
Two Dutch goals, both from distance, decided the game. Ernie Brandts scored from just outside the box, and then Arie Haan gave Holland the lead with an extraordinary swerving shot from all of thirty yards, when the Italians had ceded the midfield to their opponents.
In many ways, the 1978 Italian team deserved to win the World Cup even more than the 1982 team which ultimately did. There was a good blend of youth and experience, quality all over the field, and excellent organisation. But when it came down to it, they couldn't quite wean themselves away from the cult of 1-0.
In my view, it took one final, crucial lesson to finally break the addiction to the 1-0 catenaccio crouch. And this lesson was learned in a game from the next World Cup, one which is almost forgotten in the Italy 1982 story but which was actually deeply significant: their opening round match against Peru.
To be concluded in Part 4.
