Arrigo Sacchi (Fusignano, 76 years old), legendary coach of AC Milan, was a revolutionary.
His work leading that soccer team will go down in history as one of the great countercultural phenomena of a country that he always preferred to look back.
A company built side by side with a young Silvio Berlusconi, who had just bought a team in crisis.
They achieved, among other titles, two Champions and two intercontinental cups.
But, above all, they did it through an unusual game in Italy of the
catenaccio
based on merit, the collective and an idea of domination of space unknown until then.
The success was such that Berlusconi used it to make the leap into politics, drawing inspiration from it to create a party named after a football choir: Forza Italia.
Question
.
How do you see the panorama that opens up after the elections on September 25?
Answer
.
Look, soccer is the mirror of the history and culture of this country.
They are children of the same story.
And this is a country that has confused values.
He thinks that picaresque is superior to merit;
believes acquaintances are more important than knowledge.
We have enlightened the world, but we are more and more ignorant.
This country conquered the planet with the Romans, and then we have been more and more culturally invaded.
We have lived trying to escape, trying to survive.
The Romans conquered Gaul, numbering five million, with only 50,000 men.
Do you know why?
They were doing something unlikely today: a team.
P.
_
Also in football?
R.
_
Of course.
We practice the
catenaccio
: we put more men in defense than in attack.
We try to win by cunning, not by dominating the game.
Not all, of course.
But the majority.
And look, we've become a mafia town full of corporations.
P.
_
Well, they had a star like Mario Draghi.
R.
_
She is one of the people that Italy honored the most.
And what do we do?
We kick it out.
But she saw it coming.
And something similar happens in football: we are strong in tactics, in the short term.
But weak in strategy.
It is a country that cannot be trusted.
P.
_
When did this decline begin?
R.
_
Long ago.
And that's because we're just trying to survive, play defense.
Because we are afraid that they will mark us if we go on the attack.
P.
_
Have you heard anything interesting from politicians?
R.
_
He comes to power through promises, which then change immediately.
But this is a country that must put culture back at the center.
Before, students from all over the world came to our universities, now it is our young people who leave.
Culture is essential to raise people's knowledge.
If there is no ignorance and presumption, and so it is impossible to advance.
P.
_
Have you ever been asked to do politics?
R.
_
I have always recognized someone who has treated me well.
And Berlusconi has been formidable.
When I arrived at Milan I signed blank.
I told them to put the number: "Either you are crazy or you are geniuses."
I respect him as a person and I am his friend.
And if I had to, I would go with him.
But I don't want to do politics.
P.
_
Instead he built a countercultural animal with his Milan.
R.
_
Once I was invited to England to talk about football, an honor knowing what the English think of us.
[Manchester United player] Mark Hughes asked me how he had managed to do that in Italy: "If the field was one kilometer long, we would find the Italians in the last 20 meters," he told me.
And the truth is that I just tried to respect my values.
Better to dominate than to be dominated, better to be optimistic than pessimistic… simple things.
But in Italy simplicity is a revolution.
P.
_
Is style, also in politics, important?
R.
_
Sure, style is what identifies you.
What gives you a sense of belonging and pride.
But today we just want to win, even if it's stealing, betraying values.
The European Union valued not so long ago the corruption that existed among its community partners.
Of the 100,000 million, half was produced in Italy.
It has to do with that need to win at all costs.
With Milan I tried to do it through merit.
P.
_
It does not seem that this idea was very important considering the current panorama.
R.
_
No one is a prophet in his land.
Lack of culture makes ignoble feelings prevail, such as envy.
I thought that football was a collective of intelligences.
I looked at people, their enthusiasm, their generosity, modesty and intelligence.
I proposed things to them, and then they returned them to me improved.
I didn't want already established players, because they can break a team.
But I was fortunate to have a president who was great to me.
P.
_
And do you understand what Berlusconi is doing whitewashing those far-right parties?
R.
_
Look, I try not to follow politics too much.
But when they made him president of the Council of Ministers and I was already coach of the Italian team, we went to say goodbye to him before going to the World Cup.
He told me that he had a very difficult challenge ahead of him, and I replied that his, on the other hand, was impossible.
Italians have a sense of the nation, but not of the state.
P.
_
Italy has lately sought to be reborn from its ashes.
There are teams now in Europe, like FC Barcelona, that are proposing the same.
What do you think?
R.
_
Look, when you earn by generating debts, it's a problem.
You have to win without relying on the budget.
When I started coaching, I told one of the people who helped me take the step that I had to buy a libero.
She asked me, "What number would you give him?"
I told her it would be 6. So she went to the locker room, and she came back with a shirt with that number on it.
“You see, now if you are a good coach, you build your libero with ideas and with work”.
This is how you have to grow, also a country.
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