your best italian defense of all time???

It looks like a selection that would be widely approved generally speaking, to me. I'd suspect Vierchowod could be worth consideration, and I'd expect people might put forwards Rosato, although another interesting one could be the right-back on the same AC Milan team of the 60s - Anquilletti (I've seen, after participating in @Tom Stevens threads about the Ballon d'Or lists for past seasons, that he was well-rated in Serie A, and I've noticed he can put in a decent cross which would be useful in this system!). Hard to know about the qualities and best roles for Foni and De Vecchi maybe, but they are legendary names I know.

I thought, without wanting to divert from your main topic, that I'd have a go at trying to pick a complimentary 'front' of the team for each of the line-ups: going with a midfield combination of a playmaker, who can play from deep and/or support the attack (some maybe doing a lot of both), supported himself by someone who would be more box to box or a holding midfielder depending on what the game required, plus two support attackers (not wingers, so that ruled out the likes of Donadoni, Conti, Corso....) and a main striker. I tried to think about the qualities of the players to add to what you picked for each team, so for example Lodetti and Boniperti benefit from that I think, offering a combination that can carry the ball well down the right side in team 2.

Team 1:
-------------------------------------Rossi----------------------------------

--------------R.Baggio---------------------------Meazza--------------

----------------------Rivera--------------Tardelli-----------------------

Team 2:
-----------------------------------Piola---------------------------

------------Del Piero--------------------------Boniperti--------------

--------------------Antognoni-----------Lodetti-----------------------

Team 3:
----------------------------------Riva------------------------------------

-------------Totti--------------------------------V.Mazzola-----------

------------------Giannini--------------Bulgarelli---------------

Team 4:
-------------------------------Vialli----------------------------

-------------S.Mazzola------------------Zola------------

------------------Pirlo--------------Trapattoni-------------

 

No problem. I remember that another one who has been mentioned in some older all-time polls (of journalists, ex-players etc) - for world xi not just Italian selections - that have been posted on this forum from time to time, is Parola:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Parola

 

My favorite backlines:
Milan 93-94
Rossi,
Panucci, Tassotti, Baresi, Maldini,
Desailly

Parma 98-99
Buffon
Thuram, Cannavaro, Sensini,
(Benarrivo/Fuser, Baggio, Vanoli)

Underrated
Zenga,
Maroso, Monzeglio, Bercellino, Chiellini

 

I guess, Foni played in two systems 2-3-5 and 3-2-5, I don't know which role in the last one.

In the first one, 235, just as De Vecchi, I think the Fullback role could be most likely compared to Central defender role

 

My problem with the all-time Italian back-5 is that their choice of RB is severely lacking, offensive wise. In a back 5, you're usually quite dependent on the right wingback being a threat and creative force. Bergomi, Gentile, and Tassotti were no such players.

 

As a note, Catenaccio system does not mean, a 5 men defense, it means a defensive line with 1 libero/sweeper + 3/4 defenders doing a man-marking job.

In the catenaccio era, most teams played 3-2-2-3 (60s) or 4-3-3 (70s), that's a rival attack of 3 forwards. Then, catenaccio teams put a back-4, consisting of 1 libero and 3 man-markers, plus midfielders.

When rivals used 4-2-4 (60s) the defensive mid drop back a little, to man-mark the N.10 in the 3/4 zone.

 

I'm sure you're right, my comment was based on the lineups posted here.

It's not like all-time Italian has a Jair or a Boniek to utilize.

 

I wonder who'd be first choice for that precise role/task (assuming not Boniperti who I named already), and with a similar amount of pace/running ability.

Lombardo comes to mind, or maybe Signori on the left side (albeit not his best role).

When I tried completing some line-ups with the front of the teams I was picking a more symmetrical line-up and thinking of it as more of a modern wing-back or 3-4-3 type system even (despite yes the lack of attacking right wing-back/midfielder - in theory maybe a Donadoni would be in contention for that kind of system but he could be getting out-jumped if going back to defend the far post a lot!). I did put the playmaker on the left of the midfield duo in each case though, to be consistent in that.

 

Yeah,
For the 'ala tornante' role, I thought in Donadoni or Causio or Conti

 

Yeah, those were the ones playing that kind of role for Italy in the late 70s, 80s, early 90s weren't they too....

 

I don't know, honestly.

I think the solution might be to find balance in midfield.

 

Well, sure they are good enough to merit team 2 (and if considering longevity and having two distinct peak periods as among the best players in the world, then Mazzola>Del Piero and Pirlo>Antognoni perhaps), but like I said I was thinking about how to compliment the other players in the best way and also prioritising the players that would suit the formation (to complete my idea of the best possible teams with the 5-player defences, including wing-backs, you already picked).

Del Piero was known for being able to do great things from the left side of the pitch so would add that dimension to team 2 (although I'm not lining him up wide). Antognoni was a more progressive/involved player than Pirlo in the final third I think, more like an extra attacker, and with the 5 defenders already selected I felt having that in the midfield would be very beneficial. But when I get to Team 4 I think that Sandro and Pirlo are great enough players to become the best choices remaining for those roles and that they fit quite well into that particular team potentially IMO too.

 

Maybe some of the sweepers should change (even keeping the same 3 central defenders in each line-up)? Perhaps Burgnich behind Rosato-Chiellini for example? Maybe Costacurta (who did well in a sweeping role vs England in '97) or more likely Cesare, instead of Foni as libero also (although I am unsure of Foni's qualities and typical role and maybe you are not so unsure)? Perhaps Ferrara as team 5 sweeper (I know you previously put him there in your other line-ups) although I'm not too sure on that one. And perhaps even Vierchowod sweeping in team 6 with his pace and ability to bring the ball forwards, but then again he might be best as a man marker.

I definitely think you made the right sweeper choices for teams 1 and 2 though anyway (like you said it seems the best way to put Scirea in with Baresi, and Baresi although an excellent libero could/did also play exceptionally as more conventional centre-back....and it wouldn't be like he'd be forbidden from bringing the ball forwards anyway).

 

I think if we're going for the back-5 with a defensive-ish RB, I'd play a midfield 2 of Tardelli and V. Mazzola. They both offered good defensive protection, while Mazzola (perhaps positioned central-right) provides the much needed offensive thrust.

 

Some comments with all respect,

Rava and De Vecchi when playing in a back-2, used to mark mostly at the center, eventually crossed to sides when winghalf was beaten by winger. Italy used 2-3-5 system until 1930s

Rava, in case he played as Left Back in a back-3, only had defensive duties, Italy used 3-2-5 system since the 40s

Only fullbacks in a back-4 or back-5 used to going forward. This is fullbacks since the 1960s

 

It seems that this book "Inverting the Pyramid" wants to tell that x team played like this or like that from that precise date to this precise date without ever changing anything from match to match or even from the first minute of a match until the last (but well I don't know, I have never read it), without ever changing anything given wich players they had at their disposal and wich teams/ players they faced.

I don't buy it. All is in the title which is not wrong, even is right and pleasant but which should remain just a general concept. The author seems to be trapped by this catchy title he has chosen for his book and would like to tell us that these transformations operated by clear distinctive steps over time with clear cornerstones like x decade or x year.
It's a so "manichean" approach, so to speak. Passion in football, in general, often leads to this sort of manichaeism, that is for sure, but this being said and now back in relation of that book precisely, I think that the author needed to make a demonstration, to create himself a sort of system so to speak, or a "mechanism", in order to impose himself as a sort of professor as well as to impose his product as a product for the masses, in the same time. Or he never thought about the selling numbers and he truely thought/ found out that the game evolved that mechanically (secure for the mind? And yeah, again, can't think otherwise, secure for the sellings too in the end...).
Does this approach makes him credible or on the contrary does it show that he is not. This is the question in my opinion.
And my definitive opinion is that it is quite obviously a fraud. Not 100%... but there's something which has to do with a fraud in it, I think. Always been my thoughts but I have never expressed it until then, I don't know why...
Now to each his opinion and it is true that I have never read this book.

Footballers are not stone blocks.

About who marked who, it depended on wich games and it was not related to the system used or supposed system.
I have French players interviews from before the war (well, ok perhaps not the most organized footballers but anyway) who told that whether they played the 2-3-5 or the 3-2-5 or even later the WM (wich at the start was supposed to be about strict man-marking) they already somehow played in 4-2-4, 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 depending on the the qualities of their own players, depending on the adversaries and different situations during a game and without truely thinking about that. And without always respecting their coaches' instructions.
I sticked and will always stick to that. Due to a reasoned intellectual choice or simply due to the fact that I share the same cultural roots with them (a precise date here, if needed, perhaps would be 1789. Or it is before? Vercingetorix, I don't know?), I don't know.

I don't know about the De Vecchi case in depth but imagine him in a 2-3-5 (at the start, as the basic formation employed) : if his centre-half had a natural tendency to drop back and play almost as a CH or CB like in formations from later or that he was like ordered to do that accordingly to the game of the opponent forward(s), in consequence, De Vecchi could operate more through the left or centre-left channel thus follow perhaps more his instinctive game as a former "mezzala sinistra" (I read this form in his Italian wiki). What probably means that he was primarly a left winger, not a spearhed winger but as shown in the term which was used, a winger who plays more set back compared to his colleagues of the attack thus played more like a left midfielder.

I suppose that in some confrontations he could be that back who's more like a left-centre back and in other ones could well be more like a left back (who likes to move forward, he's not described as one of the pionners in that aspect without any reasons, what we talked a bit about above would correlate with that), there's not a single one truth about how he played and this has not to do only with the formations used, in my opinion.
Hopefully, the players can sometimes interpret their roles and not act only like machines, or simply adjust their game in certain situations before that the coach asks them to do it, if ever he noticed that something had to be modified.
Of course a team can win when they have perfectly followed the plans of the coach but sometimes, a team can loose a match because the players have been too obedient too.

From what I understood, De Vecchi was quite an adventurer kind of player. For good or for bad. Superior talent and a pathfinder anyway.
He was not liked by everybody, especially in the first part of his career if I remember well about what I read years ago, could be judged as a liabilty defensively.
Then, maybe that he became less adventurous and somehow better defensively with age, I don't know, just suppositions (btw, his record of goals in a season, two times 7 goals, past his 30 years, don't mean that he attacked as much or even more, just that he scored more ofc, can have to do with his experience to play the right moves...but it is just suppositions here again... dunno if he took penalty-kicks or if he was in the box on corner-kicks too...?).

 

Just to throw some interesting names for Left Back.
- Ugo Locatelli
- Virgilio Maroso

 

^^ "Mezzala sinistra" must mean inside left (formerly was, De Vecchi) since it's "mezzala destra" for Meazza (inside right). Wing-half is "mediano". Winger is just "ala" in short ofc.

I agree with @msioux75 about Rava fitting not that well here but for De Vecchi I think it's OK especially since it's dream teams anyway.

Locatelli mainly played left wing-half but also right wing-half.