notorious as catenaccio, perhaps no

style so misunderstood

nowadays there is a tendency to use

catenaccio when referring to any

defensive style of play but its meaning

is quite specific and arguably not

necessarily defensive. It began in Geneva

in the nineteen thirties with Servette and

the Austrian coach Carl Rappan. Servette was

semi professional and often struggled

against fitter fully professional

foreign opposition. Rappan's solution was

to adopt a more defensive approach

looking to absorb pressure before

soaring forward on the counter-attack.

Most sides in Central Europe at the time

played a 235 formation

although in practice the two inside

forwards would be slightly withdrawn

what Rappan did was to pull back his

two wing halves to flank the full-backs

forming a back four, with the centre-half

and inside forwards creating the

midfield three. The primary function of

the withdrawn wing halves was to combat

the opposition wingers. The two fullbacks

then became in effect central defenders

playing initially almost alongside each

other although in practice if the

opposition attack down there right

the left of the two would move towards

the ball with the right covering just

behind and vice versa.

In theory that always left them with a

spare man; the bolt. Rappan became coach

of Switzerland and instituted the system

with great success.

Switzerland beat England in a friendly

shortly before the 1938 World Cup,

and then beat Germany in the first round

of the tournament itself.

But it was when the system moved to

Italy after the war that it really took

off. The romantic explanation is that the

Sanatana coach Giuseppe vianney

pondering his defensive problems on an

early morning walk by the coast, was

inspired by seeing a trawler using a

reserve net to catch the fish the first

net had missed. The truth maybe more

prosaic, there was significant Swiss

influence on italian football in the

forties and fifties but Viani was the

first to use the idea of the extra man

at the back with success in Italy,

leading Salernitana to promotion in

1947. That inspired others. Nereo Rocco use

the system at Triestina and then AC Milan

with whom he won the European Cup in

1963, but it was at Inter under

Helenia Herrera who became his greatest

exponents. By then the system was known

as Catenaccio a term that refers to the

chain on a door. Inter played a

lopsided system the right back tucking

in as a marker with the right-winger jer

shuttling back as cover, where

left-back the great Jacinto Feceti

was encouraged to get forwards. They

won the European Cup in 1964 and in 1965

before falling to Jock Stein's Celtic in

the 1967 final. An epic game that showed that

all out attack could still overwhelm

all out defense.