Catenaccio

Catenaccio describes a tactical system in football with an emphasis on defence and tactical fouls. In Italian catenaccio means "door-bolt" and it means a highly organized and effective backline defense which is intended to prevent goals. It was made famous by Argentinian trainer Helenio Herrera of Inter Milan in the 1960s who used it to grind out 1-0 wins over opponents in their league games.

The system remained popular until the European Cup final in 1967 when it backfired on Inter who had gone 1-0 up from a 8th minute Mazzola penalty kick. They came under constant pressure from Celtic F.C admired for the style of attack. Celtic won the game 2-1 with over 40 attempts on goal in the process. The game exposed the serious weaknesses of the catenaccio system. After the game Helenio Herrera was forced to admit: 'Celtic deserved to win and their win was a victory for the sport'.

Catenaccio could have originated from the verrou or "chain" system invented by Austrian coach Karl Rappan. As coach of Switzerland, Rappan played a defensive sweeper just ahead of his goalkeeper in the 1930s and 1940s. Nereo Rocco's Padova, in the 1950s, pioneered the system in Italy where it would be used again by the AC Milan team of the early 1960s.

Rappan's "verrou" system, proposed in 1932 when coach of Servette, was implemented with 4 fixed defenders, playing a strict man-to-man marking system, plus a playmaker in the middle of the field who plays the ball together with two midfield wings.

Rocco's tactic, often referred to as the "real" catenaccio, was shown first in 1947 with Triestina: the most common mode of operation was a 1-3-3-3 formation with a strictly defensive team approach. With catenaccio, Triestina finished the Serie A tournament in a surprising second place. Some variations include 1-4-4-1 and 1-4-3-2 formations.

The key innovation of catenaccio was the introduction of the role of libero or sweeper, a player positioned behind the line of three defenders. The sweeper's role was to recover loose balls, nullify the opponent's striker and double mark when necessary. Another important innovation was the counter-attack, mainly based on long passes from the defence.

In Herrera's version in the 1960s, four man-marking defenders are tightly assigned to each opposing attacker while an extra sweeper would pick up any loose ball that escaped the coverage of the defenders.

With the years, the original catenaccio has been slowly abandoned for other, more balanced tactical approaches; in particular, the increasing popularity gained by an attacking-based approach like Total Football has contributed to make catenaccio just yet another football tactic.

Catenaccio today

Nowadays, catenaccio is used mainly by weaker teams, in order to reduce any technical gap against stronger ones by showing a more physical approach to football. The slow disappearance of the role of sweepers in modern football has also contributed to the decline in its use.

The catenaccio system is often criticized for reducing the quality of football games as a spectacle. In certain parts of Europe it became synonymous with negative football since the attacking aspect of the game is neglected.

One frequent mistake is to define catenaccio as any defensive tactical system used by a football team. This is actually untrue, because catenaccio is just one of the possible defensive tactics to be used. Nowadays catenaccio is used less and less by top teams, and often limited solely to particular circumstances, such as numerical inferiority following a sending off, or needing to defend a marginal scoreline until the end of the match. Thus, today catenaccio is also frequently referred to as any extremely defensive mental approach to a football match by a team.

Catenaccio is often thought to be commonplace in Italian football, however, it is actually used infrequently by Italian Serie A teams, which instead prefer to apply some other, more modern, tactical systems, like 4-4-2 and others. This does not apply to the Italian national football team, however. Italy's previous coaches, Cesare Maldini and Giovanni Trapattoni, used the catenaccio at international heights, and have all failed to reach the top. Italy, under Maldini, lost on penalties at the 1998 FIFA World Cup while Trapattoni lost early in the second round at 2002 FIFA World Cup and disappointingly lost at the 2004 European Football Championship during the first round.

When Italy was reduced to 10 men in the fiftieth minute of the 2006 FIFA World Cup round of 16 match against Australia, coach Marcello Lippi changed the Azzurri's formation to a defensive orientation which caused the Guardian to note that "the timidity of Italy's approach had made it seem that Helenio Herrera, the high priest of catenaccio, had taken possession of the soul of Marcello Lippi"^*. Note, however, that the 10 men team was playing with a 4-3-2 scheme, just a midfielder away from the regular 4-4-2. Italy was awarded a penalty in the last minute of stoppage time which midfielder Francesco Totti converted to send Italy through to the quarterfinals.

Italy won their next match against Ukraine (3-0), and proved they have excellent soccer to offer. In their following match, the Azzurri secured a historic semi-final win over Germany in Dortmund by defying common expectations of negative, safety-first play, with their 2 late goals scored by Fabio Grosso and Alessandro Del Piero in the 119th and 120th minute, that sank the host country. In this match, the Azzurri surprised many, including their opponents, by their "un-catenaccio" display which saw both teams having an equal 18 shots, of which the Germans had only 6 shots on target, while the Italians had an impressive 11, forced 10 saves from German keeper Jens Lehmann, and scored 2 goals.

Catenaccio in football history

This is a list of teams who gained some triumphs by playing catenaccio:

AC Milan, under coach Nereo Rocco, in the 1960s;
Inter Milan, under coach Helenio Herrera, in the 1960s;
North Korea national football team, reached quarter-finals in the 1966 World Cup after having defeated Italy in the previous round;
Italy, reached final in Euro 2000 after having defeated Holland in the previous round;
England vs Paraguay in the 2006 World Cup group stage. England went one nil up within 10 minutes from a Paraguay own goal and proceeded to defend the lead till the end of the game.
The 2006 World Cup final was played with strong Catenaccio by both France and Italy, being one of the most memorable Catenaccio confrontations in modern times. France and Italy praised loudly their defenses and minimized the role of attacking during the whole competition. The two teams combined performed only 8 direct kicks to the goal after 120 minutes. The final score was 1-1 and Italy won in the penalties.

Competing philosophies

Total Football

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Catenaccio

Catenaccio today

Catenaccio in football history

Competing philosophies

See also