Renzo De Vecchi
Renzo De Vecchi (born February 3, 1894 in Milan , † May 14, 1967 ) was an Italian football player and football coach who won three Italian championship titles with the CFC Genoa and took part in three Olympic tournaments with the Italian national team .
Player career
In the club
The short and fast defender was known for his technical skills as well as for his clean play and often initiated attacking moves. He was one of the strongest defensive players of his time, who was said to be almost impossible to overdribble and he was nicknamed il figlio di Dio (German: the son of God ) by the fans .
De Vecchi's first club was AC Milan , where he initially played as a winger in his youth, but moved up to the first team as a left-back in 1909 at the age of 15, where he quickly became a regular. The Milanese failed three times in a row from 1911 to 1913 at the US Pro Vercelli in the fight for a place in the final of the championship.
There were differences between the player and the club and in 1913 De Vecchi left his home club and was brought to Genoa by Scottish President Geo Davidson . Since the transfer regulations only allowed a change to a club in another city if this was done for professional reasons, De Vecchi got a job with the Banca Commerciale di Genova. A transfer fee of 24,000 lire also flowed during the transfer, which was not permitted under the regulations. The Genoese were sued by the association and a court hearing followed, in which the association demanded the dissolution of the club and the player's lifelong suspension. However, the trial ended with an acquittal, which was of similar importance to Italian football at the time as the Bosman ruling in the 1990s.
Under legendary coach William Garbutt , the defender became one of the first great stars of Italian football to be featured on magazine covers and advertised for products. De Vecchi formed together with Claudio Casanova the defense of the team that became champions in 1914/15, although the title was awarded by the association after the competition was canceled due to the First World War and Genoa was in the lead in the northern Italian final series at that time .
During the war years there were no national competitions in Italy and so it was not until the 1919/20 season before the championship operation was resumed. In 1922, De Vecchi failed with Genoa again at Pro Vercelli, but in the following season they could win the northern Italian championship and moved into the final against Lazio Rome , which was won 4-1 and 2-0. The defense with goalkeeper Giovanni De Prà , Delfo Bellini and De Vecchi was one of the decisive factors in ensuring that the Rossoblù remained unbeaten in all 28 games of the season. The title could already be repeated in 1924 when the southern champion Savoia Torre Annunziata was defeated 3: 1 and 1: 1.
In the next year, the decision about the northern Italian participant in the championship final came to one of the closest decisions in the history of the competition. Genoa and Bologna FC had won their opening groups and qualified for the finals, where each of the two teams scored 2-1 at the opponent's place. Therefore a play-off was necessary, which ended in a draw. A second play-off did not bring a winner either, but there were crowd riots at a train station, where pistol shots were also fired. The association then ordered a third playoff game, which was played behind closed doors at seven in the morning. Bologna prevailed 2-0 and thus prevented a possible third success in a row for the Genoese.
Then De Vecchi worked for the club until 1929 and was able to reach a runner-up before he ended his career.
In the national team
In May 1910, the first international match in the history of the Italian association took place, which ended in a victory against France . Less than two weeks later they traveled to Budapest to play against the Hungarians and this time De Vecchi, who was just sixteen years old, was in the squad. Although he was not in the starting line-up, he was substituted at halfway through the game, which ended 6-1. This makes him the youngest national player that the Italians have ever used.
From then on he belonged to the tribe of the Squadra Azzura and also took part in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm , where the Italians were eliminated in the main competition against the Finns and were defeated by the Austrians in the semi-finals of the consolation round .
The international competition of the Italian association was interrupted by the World War and when this was resumed in 1920 against France, De Vecchi led the team for the first time as captain on the field. He also held this position at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp , where his team failed in the quarter-finals to the French. Even four years later at the 1924 Summer Olympics was the quarter-finals, this time De Vecchi was only used in one game. In between, he had the first own goal in the history of the Italian national team in a 3: 3 against Austria in 1922. In the 1920s he mostly played alongside Virginio Rosetta or Umberto Caligaris .
In May 1925, he played for Italy for the 43rd and last time in a 7-0 win against France, having been captain 26 times. As a record international player, he was only replaced by Adolfo Baloncieri more than four years later .
Coaching career
After Garbutt had left Genoa in 1927, De Vecchi took over the coaching position of the club, which had to change its name to Circolo Calcistico Genova in 1893 on the instructions of the fascist rulers . When the all-Italian Serie A was introduced in 1929 , the Genoese were also qualified for it and achieved the runner-up title behind Ambrosiana-Inter Milan when the competition was held for the first time . De Vecchi then ended his coaching activity, but returned during the 1934/35 season on a temporary basis and led the Ligurians, who had meanwhile been relegated to the second division, back to the top division.
He then worked as a football journalist at Calcio Illustrato and in 1939 co-founded the Almanacco Illustrato del Calcio , which was later taken over by Panini .
successes
- Italian championship : 1914/15 , 1922/23 , 1923/24
- 43 games for the Italian national team
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | De Vecchi, Renzo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian soccer player and coach |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 3, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Milan |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 14, 1967 |