'Chain' gang no longer

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- Italy coach Marcello Lippi has done his homework on the United States national soccer team. Lippi revealed his insights on the US during yesterday's press conference and indicated he might know quite a lot about what the Americans are planning against the Azzurri tonight.

Possibly, it was a subconscious revelation, but when Lippi started naming US players to watch, he included two ( Eddie Johnson and the Revolution's Clint Dempsey) who were not in the starting lineup in the opening game. In any case, he is expecting a different US team than the one that lost to the Czech Republic Monday.

``It would be the stupidest thing, the least sensible, to prepare for the second game by looking at the first game," Lippi said. ``That would be a serious mistake. It is clear the US lost by 3-0, but because of that they are going to come out 100 times more determined. And we can't give anything less.

``The teams will play according to their characteristics, they won't change their nature. The US and Italy will play the way they played last [Monday]. Even if they lost, 3-0, they have their tactical scheme, their way of playing. We will see, but I believe there will not be much change."

Lippi said the US defeat was deceptive. Asked if he was surprised by the result, Lippi replied, ``I am not surprised, because the Czechs had the good fortune to score first, early in the game, and after that they closed spaces. When the US had a chance to tie [a Claudio Reyna shot rang off the post in the 28th minute], they were unlucky not to score. After that the game became disproportionate, the score not an accurate reflection of the two teams.

``[The US] is well organized, has great mobility. Every player moves and they move continuously, and this holds true all over the field. All of them -- Reyna, [Landon] Donovan, [Brian] McBride, Johnson, [Bobby] Convey, Dempsey."

The first time Italy and the US met in the World Cup, the Italians took a 7-1 victory in 1934 in Rome. The Azzurri coach then was Vittorio Pozzo, who had studied the game in England at the turn of the century, when the English were considered the masters of soccer, then expanded on their ideas to develop the hybrid metodo system as national team coach from 1912-48.

Pozzo guided Italy to World Cup titles in 1934 and '38, and also the 1936 Olympic gold medal (including an 11-2 victory over the US in Berlin). Pozzo set high standards, and among Italian coaches, only Enzo Bearzot in 1982 has been able to win a World Cup since.

Part of the problem started in 1949, when most of Italy's national team perished in an airplane accident, just after the nation's male population had been depleted by war. Torino was the strongest Italian club then, but it would never regain that status after the team plane crashed upon returning from a match in Portugal.

Italian soccer survived the tragedy, but the postwar mentality led to an inferiority complex at the national team level. Nereo Rocco was among the most influential coaches, preaching catenaccio, an ultradefensive scheme that became the hallmark of the Italian game. Inter's Helenio Herrera, a Moroccan-born Argentine, took pragmatism to the limit in winning the Champions Cup in 1966.

The foundation was laid and the success of Italian teams made catenaccio a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

Defending (and counterattacking, a key element to the tactic, much like a fast break in basketball) became virtually an art form. Defenders were glorified, revered, polyfunctional figures. Even now, the starting central defenders for today's game, Fabio Cannavaro and Alessandro Nesta, are stylish performers with movie-star images.

But when catenaccio was being developed and perfected, soccer was a slower game. The catenaccio approach (catenaccio means ``chain"), strongly-linked defending, willingness to settle for a 0-0 tie, meant Italian teams could turn the game into a battle of wills. The Italians produced athletic, skillful attackers such as Gigi Riva, Gianni Rivera, and Sandro Mazzola, whose father, Valentino, had been a symbol of the Torino club; and predatory strikers such as Paolo Rossi, who emerged to lead Italy to the Spain '82 World Cup championship, and Salvatore ``Toto" Schillaci, who nearly did the same in the '90 Cup. But teams were built around defenders such as Armando Picchi, Giacinto Facchetti, and Franco Baresi.

But after 1990, FIFA instituted two changes that would devalue pure catenaccio and other negative tactics. The back pass could no longer be handled by the goalkeeper, meaning the ball would be in play more often. And the value of a victory was increased from 2 to 3 points, adding emphasis on winning, penalizing teams that played for a draw.

These alterations were anticipated by Arrigo Sacchi, who turned AC Milan into an uptempo, Dutch-influenced group, which dominated Serie A and became the strongest team in Europe (and also launched the political ambitions of club president Silvio Berlusconi). Few others thought they could match Sacchi's supercharged Diavoli Rossi (Red Devils), so the safety-first style remained prevalent.

But the changing tempo was perceived by a recently retired player from the Tuscan town of Viareggio, on the Ligurian coast, named Marcello Lippi. When Lippi became coach of Juventus, he pushed the players into an attacking mode, going all out for 3 points every game. ``La Juve," the most popular club in the country, having surpassed city neighbor Torino, won the 1996 European Champions League.

By then, Sacchi had been national team coach for four years without having been able to transfer the magic of Milan to the Azzurri. So, the Italian governing body of soccer, FIGC (Federazione Italiana Gioco Calcio), decided to go back to the old ways. Cesare Maldini, Dino Zoff, and Giovanni Trapattoni, legends of the Italian game, took turns as ``commissario tecnico," each erring on the side of catenaccio as the team underachieved.

Italy was eliminated on penalty kicks by eventual champion France in the 1998 World Cup, surrendered a stoppage-time goal to the French in falling in the 2000 European Championship, and had five goals disallowed in the 2002 World Cup. But there was more than misfortune involved in these results. Someone in the FIGC realized Italy had to start making its own luck, and so Lippi was hired.

Lippi's Italy is young, the players from outside the northern power axis, their mentality adapted to the modern game. In a 2-0 win over Ghana Monday, two Italian starters were from Palermo (Fabio Grosso and Cristian Zaccardo), three from AS Roma (Daniele De Rossi, Simone Perrotta, and Francesco Totti). Two of the strikers are from Fiorentina (Luca Toni) and Udinese (Vincenzo Iaquinta)

Juventus's Gianluca Zambrotta could return to his starting role at left back ahead of Grosso tonight. And Milan's Gennaro ``Rino" Gattuso trained at full speed yesterday and could displace De Rossi.

``Everyone is available, even Gattuso," Lippi said.

When he was unemployed in 1999, Lippi attended a Revolution training session when they were based in Versilia, watching intently and afterward conferring with then-coach Walter Zenga, a former World Cup goalkeeper for Italy. The Revolution were mostly anonymous during that trip, but Lippi went out of his way to check them out. An Italian journalist evaluated his appearance this way: ``One Lippi at your practice is better than having a few thousand fans there."

Lippi is respected by the media, which often notes his resemblance to Paul Newman, and he has steered clear of the current investigation of Italian soccer. Lippi said he told his son, Davide, not to ever try to influence his selection of players. Davide is employed by the management group GEA, which represents more than 200 players and 41 coaches, including Lippi himself, and has been in a position of conflict of interest near the heart of the allegations of irregularities.

Italy has a 19-game unbeaten streak, its longest since Pozzo's team went undefeated from 1935-39.

Just as Pozzo started modernizing Italian soccer nearly 100 years ago, Lippi, 58, has brought Italy's soccer up to date.

But if Lippi is a prophet, a harbinger of change, he is also just happy to be here. Earlier in the week, pointing out his FIFA World Cup identification badge, Lippi said, ``All in all, I have been in `calcio' for 40 years. And I have seen all these coaches with that FIFA pass and I wanted it, too. Now I have it."