Once the Italian national team failed to obtain qualification for the 1992 Euros, Federcalcio brought in legendary AC Milan head coach Arrigo Sacchi to lead Azzurri through the upcoming 1994 World Cup qualifying.
As usual, Sacchi took the job following his visionary path.
It drew criticism, as he left some notable and loved players at home, such as Inter Milan’s goalkeeper Walter Zenga and Juventus forward Gianluca Vialli.
Simply, all of them weren’t suited to Arrigo Sacchi’s 4-4-2 formation and couldn’t fulfil the requests that the former Milan coach’s tactical approach required.
Sacchi’s football was highly demanding.
He wanted his side to control the game through ball retention, while his players had to win the ball back as quickly as possible through continuous high pressure.
In the hope of perfection, Sacchi constantly emphasized work on a daily basis.
He put his players through many drills, often involving the entire squad working together.
This method requires time for the players to assimilate, so Sacchi started asking clubs to allow their players to attend special Azzurri training camps during the season.
He also meticulously worked with them during the international breaks.
Sacchi and his coaching staff – which featured Carlo Ancelotti as assistant coach – thought of themselves as teachers more than simple coaches, and they saw Azzurri more as a club than a national team.
This means that Sacchi trialled many players before the World Cup campaign, trying to install many tactical concepts to force them to think as a unit and not as a bunch of footballers from different clubs.
As mentioned before, Sacchi favoured a 4-4-2 shape from a tactical point of view, and this system was fluid enough for those times.
When in possession, it looked more like a 4-3-3 with one of the flankers – usually Giuseppe Signori, one of the best Italian goal scorers ever who Sacchi converted in a left-winger – reaching Roberto Baggio and Pierluigi Casiraghi up top.
Roberto Baggio’s role
Roberto Baggio was the key man over there.
Despite enjoying some degree of freedom in Sacchi’s tactical approach, the then Juventus player still had to roam around the final third of the field according to the team’s pattern.
So, it was unusual to see Roberto Baggio dropping back to cover some passing lines or to pick the ball up in between opposition lines.
Furthermore, Roberto Baggio linked midfield to attack, either playing a pass to the outside or providing a through ball towards the other forward up front.
Roberto Baggio acted as an attacking midfielder with the freedom to push higher up the final third to play as a forward himself.
Roberto Baggio’s movement, combined with others, generated multiple tactical patterns that allowed Italy to manipulate the opposite’s defensive structure and compactness.
These patterns usually ran through the wings, from where Italy was suited to attack or to start a change of play involving both no.6 and no.8 to reach the weak side or to attack behind the opposition’s backline directly.
Arrigo Sacchi’s Defensive Approach
Another key man in Italy’s offence was the veteran Franco Baresi.
A former libero converted into a centre-back at Milan by the same Sacchi, Baresi was pivotal in Azzurri’s building from the back.
He often received the ball from the goalkeeper, starting the process of getting the ball out from the back through an outside pass towards the full-back or through a pass in the middle to central midfielders Demetrio Albertini or Dino Baggio.
It created a triangle featuring Baresi and the near full-back and central midfielder.
But Baresi could also jump ahead and reach the midfield as a spare man, providing Sacchi’s side with numerical superiority.
Whilst Sacchi stayed faithful to this offensive philosophy through the World Cup, the same cannot be said about defensive tactics.
In fact, the high temperatures that the teams faced in the USA forced Italy to change its defensive approach.
Although Sacchi initially planned to repeat his favourite high-pressing tactics, it was clear that weather conditions required something different.
So, high pressure was occasionally abandoned in favour of a more cautious approach, in which the Italian side came back to defend in a 4-4-2 with two banks of four or through a variable that included a deep 4-5-1 formation.
This whole structure, both defensively and offensively, often took a back seat when analyzing the 1994 World Cup, with the main focus being on Roberto Baggio’s individual effort.
Instead, as Sacchi said, it was a collective play started in their own territory, followed by a change of play and by full-back Roberto Mussi overlapping on the right side, that led to Roberto Baggio’s equalizer against Nigeria in the last minutes of the game.
To better understand Sacchi’s style, compare it with Argentina’s Jorge Sampaoli during the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Sampaoli built a team that relied strongly on Lionel Messi, who became the key point in Argentina’s offence.
Messi was charged with solving Argentina’s offensive problems while his teammates had to adapt their play to the No 10’s position.
Sacchi’s approach was different: he never asked a single player to lead his team, not even Ruud Gullit or Marco van Basten at AC Milan.
According to Sacchi, a player is part of a structured side where his individual skills can flourish.
Conclusion
Sacchi’s decision against Norway was conceivable because he stayed faithful to his tactical principles, favouring the team’s shape instead of dependence on one player.
During this crucial group stage game, Italy was forced to play one man down because their goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca was sent off following a ball handled outside the box to fix a mistake the Italian backline committed while trying to play the offside trap.
In the few seconds following Pagliuca’s ejection, with backup keeper Luca Marchegiani ready to step up, Sacchi decided to withdraw Roberto Baggio, retaining Casiraghi and Signori on the field, citing he “needed nine running players.”
This courageous and highly unpopular move paid off, as Italy produced a pivotal 1-0 win.
The rest is history.
Despite the team’s captain, Baresi, facing a knee injury, Sacchi was able to reshape his backline by moving left-back Paolo Maldini to the middle and lining up Mauro Tassotti, Mussi, and Antonio Benarrivo as full-backs.
Then, Baresi went back to play the final against Brazil, with Italy maintaining the clean sheet until the penalty shootout.
