When substituted, a Fiorentina fan threw a purple scarf towards him. Baggio picked it up and took it into the dugout, a move that infuriated Juventus fans, who never entirely took to him. After leaving Fiorentina, he always felt more like an Italy player who happened to play club football, rather than a club footballer who occasionally played for his country; worshipped by the country overall rather than by supporters of his club.
Baggio was neither an attacking midfielder nor a conventional forward; he was the archetypal number 10 who thrived when deployed behind two strikers, orchestrating play and providing moments of magic. He was the type of player that demanded, and justified, the side being built around him, the type Italian football adores. However, the classic Italian trequartista role, which generally refers to a number 10 playing behind two strikers, was under threat. Arrigo Sacchi’s emphasis on a heavy pressing 4–4–2 left no place for a languid trequartista, and therefore players like Baggio were having to prove their worth.
Baggio was a reclusive, amiable character who nevertheless constantly talked himself into trouble. ‘I’m a ball-player, and I think it’s better to have ten disorganised footballers than ten organised runners,’ he declared, which couldn’t have been a more obvious put-down of Sacchi’s methods. Ahead of the 1994 World Cup, Sacchi couldn’t ignore Baggio’s talent, considering he was the reigning European Footballer of the Year, but Sacchi always deployed him as a forward in a 4–4–2, rather than in Baggio’s preferred role behind two strikers. Their most famous dispute came in the group stage match against Norway, when goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca was sent off in the opening stages. Italy needed a replacement, and Sacchi elected to substitute Baggio, who trudged off while calling his manager ‘crazy’. Supporters sided with the footballing genius rather than the totalitarian coach, but it was probably the right decision, and Italy won 1–0 with a goal from a Baggio – Dino, no relation. Sacchi’s Italy eventually reached the final, losing to Brazil in a penalty shootout with Roberto Baggio the unfortunate fall guy, blasting the decisive penalty over the crossbar. Nevertheless, the general feeling amongst Italian supporters was that their country had reached the final because of Baggio’s brilliance rather than Sacchi’s tactics. He was omitted from Italy’s disastrous Euro 96 campaign, with Sacchi citing fitness concerns. Nevertheless, his absence supported the growing public feeling that Italian managers were placing too much prominence on the system, and not enough on creative geniuses.
Baggio started 1996/97 at Óscar Tabárez’s AC Milan, playing as a number 10 behind Marco Simone and George Weah. But after disappointing results, Milan made two decisions that hampered Baggio. First, they reverted to their tried-and-tested 4–4–2 and then, even worse, they re-appointed Sacchi after he was sacked by Italy. ‘He’s two-faced. He tells me that I’m playing well during the week, but come Sunday he leaves me on the bench,’ blasted Baggio after a couple of months. ‘I feel like a Ferrari being driven by a traffic warden. A coach must, above all, be a good psychologist. If he imposes his demands harshly, he suffocates the personalities and creativity of his players.’ Baggio started searching for a new club ahead of 1997/98.
That club should have been Parma, who emerged as a serious title challenger thanks to the apparent wealth of Calisto Tanzi, founder and CEO of Parmalat, a locally based multinational dairy producer. As with various Serie A owners of the time, Tanzi’s wealth later proved to have been acquired by fraud, and Parmalat later collapsed in Europe’s biggest-ever bankruptcy; the club went bust too, and Tanzi was imprisoned. But during the mid-1990s, Tanzi’s beneficiary attracted a variety of superstars.
Not every coach, however, wanted superstars, and in 1996 Tanzi appointed an up-and-coming manager by the name of Carlo Ancelotti. He only had one season of Serie B experience, coaching Reggiana, but had previously been Sacchi’s assistant for the national side. Ancelotti was considered the next great Italian manager, and from the outset he followed Sacchi’s template perfectly, 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
