Milan and Italy legend Arrigo Sacchi has lambasted the problems that affect both Italian culture and football, aiming a broadside at many current clubs. ‘Winning when you are in the red is akin to stealing.’
The now retired coach has always been highly-critical of the Calcio approach that winning is the most important thing, no matter how it is achieved, instead insisting that the style of football is what truly marks success.
His fury at the Italian way of doing things does not solely remain at football, but is also about politics, infrastructure and daily life.
“I believe in values and this is a country that has the wrong values,” Sacchi told Sky Sport Italia.
“Being sneaky is not a value, even if it is not quite outright dishonesty. All that counts is winning. The European Union indicates that 50 per cent of the corruption in the continent is localised in Italy. It affects our daily lives.
“We are a country that tries to be tactical rather than strategic, and that is more obvious than ever in football. The founding fathers thought of this as an attacking sport, but we transformed it into a defensive one dominated by individuality. Even in politics, if you have three people, they will end up just making three individual parties rather than working together.”
Sacchi lashed out at many of the current coaches and clubs starring in Serie A and Europe.
“Most coaches look at the feet of a player, whereas I looked at their minds. This is a country where teams are heavily in debt because that is a tactic. They don’t have their own style, they just put themselves out to make the most of someone else’s mistake.
“In my view, winning when you are in the red is akin to stealing.”
The man who created the Grande Milan of the late 1980s cast his eye over the situation at Napoli, where Rudi Garcia was fired after 12 rounds and Walter Mazzarri brought in, all trying to follow in the footsteps of Scudetto-winner Luciano Spalletti.
“I expected this, because Spalletti had a masterpiece at Napoli last season. They played beautiful football with a winning mentality, team spirit and individual motivation. All these things are free, they cost nothing. So I imagine many players gave more last year than this term.
“The coach left, he was a strategist. I don’t think they replaced him with another strategist, so the results won’t come. The problem with Presidents now is when there is a problem, they just sign another player, rather than focus on creating a style of football. Unfortunately, ignorance does not help.”
Funny. Milan was always in the red when he coached them. Berlusconi balanced the books with his own money
Anon doesn’t make sense.
Balancing the books means that Milan were not in the red.
So no, they were not “always in the red” when he was coaching Milan.
Only for Berlusconi’s cash Milan could not have paid the bills. So is Arrigo, in a round about way, saying that his Milan team only won due to cheating? Another trait in Italy is a need to burn things to the ground.