Vittorio Pozzo

Vittorio Pozzo
Vittorio Pozzo in 1920
Personnel
birthday	March 12, 1886
place of birth	Turin ,  Italy
date of death	December 21, 1968
Place of death	Ponderano ,  Italy
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1905-1906	Grasshopper Zurich
1906-1911	Torino FC
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1912	Italy
1912-1922	AC Turin
1921	Italy (technical commission)
1924	Italy
1924-1945	AC Milan
1929-1948	Italy
1 Only league games are given.

Vittorio Pozzo (born March 12, 1886 in Turin , † December 21, 1968 in Ponderano ) was an Italian football player and coach . As head coach of the Italian national team, he became world champion in 1934 and 1938.

Career

Vittorio Pozzo first came into contact with the game of football while studying in England at the beginning of the 20th century and decided to make the sport more popular in Italy than it has been to date. First he played in Switzerland in 1905 for Grasshopper Zurich and from 1906 to 1911 for his favorite club, FC Turin , which he then coached until 1922. In later years as national coach, he repeatedly placed players from his club FC Turin in the national team. In an international match, he set a record of ten players for Turin FC in the starting line-up. As coach of the Olympic team, he went to the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912 for the first time to a major tournament. After a long break caused by the First World War , he did not train an Italian selection again until 1924 at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris . He won the bronze medal at this tournament. Olympic champion was Uruguay , which after another Olympic victory in 1928 was allowed to host the first newly established soccer world championship in 1930 . Pozzo was finally appointed permanent national coach in 1929, but did not make the long voyage to South America with his team .

Scheme of the Metodo

The fascist Italy hosted the second 1934 FIFA World Cup . Under the eyes of dictator Benito Mussolini , Pozzo's team won the world championship title with great effort in the final against Czechoslovakia 2-1 after extra time. Especially the Czechoslovak goalkeeper legend František Plánička made problems for the Italian team. Only the goal by Angelo Schiavio in the 95th minute brought the decision.

For the next four years Vittorio Pozzo worked on perfecting his tactic , which he called Metodo . The previous game system of two defenders, three center runners and five attackers changed to a formation that reinforced the defensive with two half-strikers instead of five attackers and still allowed offensive football. This system brought him the Olympic victory at the Summer Olympics in Berlin in 1936 and an overwhelming success at the 1938 World Cup in France , which never put Italy's title defense in jeopardy. In the final, Hungary was defeated 4-2. The stars of the team, almost completely different from 1934, were Giuseppe Meazza and Silvio Piola .

The Second World War ended Vittorio Pozzo's winning streak. The next World Cup tournament could not be held again until 1950. In 1948, however, he had already resigned as national coach. Pozzo had 97 caps in 28 years, losing only 16 games - a record in Italy that still stands today. Pozzo became a sports journalist after his coaching career, but found himself exposed to hostility in this profession, which was due to his successes under the fascist regime. He then withdrew completely from public life in his hometown of Turin. In 1949 he was one of the eyewitnesses to the plane crash of his team from Turin FC , in which many of his former players were killed. Pozzo had to identify them at the scene of the accident in Turin.

Vittorio Pozzo died in 1968, the year in which Italy was able to win another major title for the first time at the European Football Championship after winning the world championship in 1938 . He is the only coach with two world titles. In total, he looked after the Italians at nine World Cup games and was the record holder until 1958, when he was replaced by Sepp Herberger , who expanded the record to double the number.

successes

• European National Team Cup : 1927–1930 , 1933–1935
• World Champion : 1934 , 1938
• Olympic champion : 1936

Web links

Commons : Vittorio Pozzo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Vittorio Pozzo in the database of weltfussball.de