The Greatest Comeback by David Bolchover

Author:David Bolchover [David Bolchover ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785902642
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2017-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

AC Milan had started the 1953/54 season in mediocre fashion. A dismal 3–0 defeat against local rivals Inter in their shared San Siro stadium precipitated a search for a new coach, a very regular pastime for the always impatient club hierarchy.

Although Guttmann had now been sacked in his two previous Italian roles, his energy and imagination had continued to make an impression on the country’s footballing elite. Antonio Busini, a native of Padua who had played many times for Padova, was now the long-standing technical director at AC Milan. He had admired Guttmann’s efforts in his home town, and approached the highly respected Lajos Czeizler for a supporting reference.

Czeizler was a Hungarian Jew† who at that point was coach of the Italian national team. He would take them to the World Cup in Switzerland at the end of that season. After a playing career that started as a youth team player at MTK Budapest, he had achieved great success as a coach, winning the Swedish championship five times with IFK Norrköping, and then leading AC Milan to their first Serie A title in more than forty years, in 1951.

He gave the nod to Busini, and the club resolved to get their man. ‘They phoned me four times in two days, they even told me when the flight from Cyprus to Rome would leave, then the train to Milan,’ remembered Guttmann. ‘I figured they were in trouble and desperately needed the work of a new coach. But Italy again? Weren’t Padua and Trieste enough? Everything would be different in Milan, I thought.’

So, in November 1953, a mildly hesitant but nevertheless optimistic Guttmann alighted from his train at the central Milan station, underneath which more than 850 Jews had been transported from a secret platform to their deaths in Auschwitz just a few years before.

Not only was this the biggest job he had ever taken on in football terms, it was also by far the most lucrative and the most pressurised. Media and public scrutiny were intense and often savage. Supporters would flock to see public training sessions, and the players and coach lived in a goldfish bowl, accosted wherever they went.

As could be expected with a club of this size, Guttmann had an abundance of talent to work with, not least a Scandinavian triumvirate: the Swedish striker Gunnar Nordahl, the top scorer in Serie A in five separate seasons, still a record; his compatriot, Nils Liedholm, who captained his country when it hosted the World Cup tournament in 1958, scoring in the losing final against Brazil; and Jørgen Sørensen, a Danish international and another prolific goalscorer.

Guttmann didn’t waste any time in introducing his ideas. He rejected the highly defensive tactical system of catenaccio, which was just starting to take root in Italy at the time. ‘Since I had outstanding players, I gave them my orders: Attack!’ he said. With similar fearlessness, he instigated his tough twice-a-day training regime, confronting what he saw as an excessively relaxed dressing room culture. ‘The duration

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