DIVE INTO HISTORY: NEREO ROCCO

Even before the ventures of Sacchi, Milan already had a coaching behemoth in its history in the form of Nereo Rocco: The man who popularized Catenaccio in Italy.

Rocco was not a great player. He played for his native Triestina and Napoli towards the end of his career. His only appearance for Italy came against Greece in a 4-0 win

Managed Triestine as a player-manager and took them to second place ahead of traditional powerhouses such as Milan and Juventus. Torino winning the Serie A. Those were the days of the Il Grande Torino days before the fatal accident.

Catenaccio started mainly in Geneva, instituted by manager of the club club Servette Karl Rappan in the 1930’s. Rappan’s team were not technically as gifted as the better team in the leagues’ and so he needed a counter-tactic.

His famous “Verrou” system had his teams fall into a 4-3-3 formation with one particular player called as the verroulier sweeping up chances behind the defense. This player is called as the sweeper.

The Second world war brought the concept of Verrou to Italy and it touched out on 2 now famous managers. Gipo Vianni and Nereo Rocco. Nereo Rocco joined Serie B side Treviso as a full time manager to test his theories and perfect Catenaccio

He took over Padova and in the 57-58 season finised 3rd with the principles of catenaccio. But Padova was a provincial team and could not compete with more financially competent teams like Milan and Inter.

His big break came when he was asked to take over as the A.C.milan manager by none other than Gipo Viani who suffered a heart attack after winning the scudetto in 1960/61 season. Viani, another proponent of the Catenaccio wanted Nereo Rocco to take over from him.

Rocco started his Milan career in style winning the 1961-62 scudetto scoring 83 goals in 34 matches.

A natural rivalry was born between Inter manager Helenio Herrera and Milan manager Rocco. Herrera brought in from Barcelona believed in an expansive style while Rocco believed in keeping it closed.

Milan defeated Inter 3-1 which led to Herrera re-visiting his tactical concepts and would shift to a catenaccio form of play and go on to be the greatest proponent of Catenaccio winning 2 Europeans cups in a row with his Grande inter side.

Meanwhile Rocco had a disagreement with legendary Englishman Jimmy Greaves who was shipped out and the Brazilian Dino Sani was brought in.

Milan reached the 1962/63 season European Cup final against Benifica who were playing with the world’s second best player in the legendary Eusebio

https://twitter.com/keralista/status/1299719913397870592?s=20
A legendary battle took place between Milan and Benifica and Milan won 2-1 after 2 goals from Jose Alfatini cancelled out Eusebio’s goal for Benifica. Milan and Italy got their first European trophy and Rocco and Cesare Maldini were at the center of it all

Rocco was more of a traditional believer of Catenaccio. Cesare Maldini, a native of triestine himself was the sweeper of the team and Gianni Rivera was the creative force. They were the leaders of the pitch

Rocco then left A.C.Milan to manage Torino who was yet to recover from their horrible plane crash. He managed Torino from 1963-67. He came back to Milan in 1967

Once again Milan reached the European cup final in the 1968/69. This time it was a more legendary battle. The total football of Johan Cryuff vs The Catenaccio of the golden boy Rivera.

Milan came out in flying colours and defeated Ajax 4-1 in the final with Prati scoring a hat-trick in the final.

Rocco then won a Intercontinental cup the next season with Milan and managed them until 1973. In 1977 he became the technical director of the club and held on to that position until his death in 1979

Rocco was a pragmatist who would do anything to win the match (something like a modern Jose Mourinho). He would berate refrees, humiliate his own players and made a nuisance of himself to anyone who got in the way of winning the match

The godfather of Italian Journalism, famous GdS journalist Gianni Brera was a great friend of Rocco. He would often sit down in the evening with Rocco and dissect the issues with his team and analyse various issues of the day

Gianni Brera had to say this about Rocco “He was always real, always himself. Both in official decisions, and in moments of relaxation, True, authentic”.

Catenaccio stayed in the hearts of Italians and Italian football would go onto use it extensively until the great Sacchi came and found a counter-tactic with his Milan side.

End of thread. RT’s, likes and feed back appreciated.

Will do a separate thread on our 4-1 final win vs Ajax

@acmilan