When Calcio Ruled the Football World
di SHAHAN PETROSSIAN
My introduction to the
World of Soccer occurred during the 1982 World Cup.
As the months passed
my interest grew stronger and stronger.
I was still unexposed
to the world of club soccer, however, in the months following the World Cup and
into the Fall I started paying more attention to club matches shown on
Television, as well as highlights of matches shown.
More often than not
these involved the English, West German, Dutch, Italian, French and Spanish
Leagues.
I was slowly able to
match the names I had learned during the World Cup with the clubs they played
for.
Little by little, I
noticed Bruno Conti was playing for a team called AS Roma with Brazil’s Falcao
as a teammate and Giancarlo Antognoni played for a team called Fiorentina.
To my amazement I
learned of a team named Juventus that not only practically contained every
Italian National Team player that I had learned over the summer (Zoff, Gentile,
Scirea, Cabrini, Tardelli, Rossi), but also France’s Michel Platini and
Poland’s Zbigniew Boniek.
To me it seemed unreal
that so many national team players were all in one club.
By springtime my
interest had developed to such a point that I started buying specialized Sports
magazines to follow the teams and the scores.
In the days before
wall to wall Television coverage and the internet, the ritual of waiting every
week in anticipation to get the latest local Sports Magazine to get the scores
and news would remain with me for the decades to come passing through different
countries.
Again the bulk of the
coverage was on the top European Leagues and I was slowly discovering that the
Italian Serie A was THE Top League with the most prestige and stars.
I became a fan of
Juventus due to the fact that I actually recognized most of the players.
By the time I started
actively following scores and table positions, the season was in full swing and
past the halfway mark. By this point AS Roma were League leaders on their way
to claim their first title since 1942.
The team behind them
was a surprising newly promoted team called Verona and Alessandro Altobelli’s
Internazionale Milano (In print the team was always referred as Inter Milan).
Again I was surprised
to learn that West Germany’s Hansi Muller that I had discovered during the
World Cup was playing for Inter.
Juventus were a
distant fourth and were by all accounts having a poor season.
However, a victory vs.
League leaders AS Roma (2 to 1) changed things around and from then on Juventus
started winning match after match with Platini in superb form.
They overtook Verona
and Inter and established themselves in the second position, but their deficit
over Roma was too great to overcome and Roma deservedly won the Serie A title.
In the years to come I
would learn the names of key AS Roma players such as Roberto Pruzzo, Sebastiano
Nela and Agostino di Bartolomei, but for now their names were still foreign to
me as I was still familiarizing myself with this newfound interest and back in
those days magazines just printed the scores and not team lineups.
I did not even know
any coaches at the time, but soon enough the names of Nils Liedholm and
Giovanni Trapattoni would be familiar.
Juventus did gain some
consolation by winning the Italian Cup at the expense of Verona. But in time I
would to learn the unimportance of this competition with matches played before
the season had started and the Final (two legged) played after the League
season had ended.
One thing was sure,
Juventus was going to be my club to support in Italy and I could not wait for
the following season (1983/84) to start.
Part Two (1983/84)
The 1983/84 season was the first
Football season that I followed from the start as a knowledgeable fan (as
knowledgeable as a 10 year old can be).
By now, I was familiar with the
various European Leagues and the players and the differences associated with
each.
During that summer offseason, a
friend of the family who was leaving the country left me his possession of
Sports magazines (it was called ‘Donyaye Varzesh’ (World of Sports)). This
collection stretched back to the 1980/81 season.
I spent those summer months reading
the magazines and like a sponge absorbed the information with great interest
and caught up with the last few seasons.
With the new Serie A season on the
horizon, Juventus were in a confident mood due to their positive run at the end
of the previous season, with Platini at his zenith.
Captain and Inspirational goalkeeper
Dino Zoff had retired and Roberto Bettega had left the Serie A for Canada’s
Toronto Blizzard in an act of pre-retirement.
The rest of the squad was intact
that still included five World Cup winners.
Stefano Tacconi had arrived from
Avellino to replace Zoff, while Domenico Penzo arrived from Verona to replace
Bettega.
Defending Champions AS Roma, led by
World Cup heroes Bruno Conti and Brazilian Paulo Roberto Falcao, had also been
active in the transfer market.
They had acquired Brazilian
midfielder Toninho Cerezo to replace Austrian Herbert Prohaska.
World Cup winning striker Francesco
Graziani had arrived from Fiorentina to partner up Roberto Pruzzo.
Both teams were the title favorites
with AS Roma also eyeing the Champions Cup, with the Final to be played at
their home stadium.
I was also made aware that the
defending League Champions played the following season with a small Italian
Flag on their jerseys.
I had noticed that on Juventus’
jerseys the previous season, without realizing its significance. But this
season it was AS Roma that had the Italy flag on their shirts.
Another novelty was the promotion of
AC Milan, the neighbors of Inter. I had been unaware of them up to that point
since they were in Serie B the previous season. Soon enough I would learn of
their history and special place in Serie A and would learn of Baresi and
Tassoti who would achieve European glory before the end of the decade.
The talking point of the pre-season
was the transfer of Brazilian superstar Zico from Flamengo to Udinese. At the
time I was puzzled a player of his stature joining a modest mid-table team, but
little did I know of the World of Football Finance. Not realizing that he was
paid like a king to join such a club.
Other new foreign players included
the Belgians Eric Gerets and Ludo Coeck at AC Milan and Internazionale Milano
respectively.
Young Danish Sensation Michael Laudrup
was loaned from Juventus to Lazio, although at the time I was unaware of the
loan deal.
Former Watford striker Luther
Blisset joined newly promoted AC Milan, but he would endure a nightmare of a
season.
Ajax Amsterdam and Dutch striker Wim
Kieft joined Pisa and would soon learn the difference between the free scoring
Dutch League and the defense oriented Serie A.
Scottish striker Joe Jordan was
traded from one Italian club to another (AC Milan to Verona).
As far as Italian players, World Cup
Champion and long serving Internazionale midfielder Gabriele Oriali joined
Fiorentina.
Just like the previous season, I continued
my routine of getting the local Sports Magazine on a weekly basis and trying to
catch as much Television coverage as possible.
Essentially most fans were glued to
their Television for a weekly sports program broadcast on Friday nights that
along other sports also showed European League highlights and goals.
Juventus and Roma started the
season confidently and topped the League from early on.
Platini was in sensational form and
Paolo Rossi seemed to be discovering his scoring touch.
Platini’s excellent calendar year
was rewarded with the Ballon d’Or trophy awarded by ‘France Football’ magazine.
Juventus broke free from the chasing
pack on Matchday 13 and would hold on to the League lead despite resistance
from Roma.
Zico’s transfer to Udinese seemed to
have paid dividends and he was scoring many goals in a very defensive League
and Udinese owed their relatively high place due to his exploits.
In fact he was the League’s top
goalscorer until Platini overtook him in the second half of the season. In the
end Platini scored one more goal (20 to 19).
The surprise for Juventus was the
emergence of the young Beniamino Vignola who at first seemed unlikely to break
into the first team, but as the season wore on he appeared more and more. His
progress earned him a spot on Italy’s 1984 Olympic squad held in Los Angeles
that year.
Both Juventus and Roma also reached
European Cup Finals, with Juventus topping off their excellent season by
triumphing in the Cup Winners Cup vs. Portugal’s Porto, while AS Roma were
defeated in a penalty kick shoot-out vs. Liverpool at their home ground of
Stadio Olimpico.
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Photo From: Onze, Issue 102, June 1984 (Michel Platini, May 16, 1984, Cup Winners Cup, Juventus 2-Porto 1) |
In a way this defeat started the
decline of that fine Roma squad. In the offseason, Swedish manager Nils
Liedholm departed to AC Milan, ending a cycle.
Their only consolation was in
winning the Coppa Italia vs. Verona at the end of the season.
At the end of that summer, my family
and I left our home for good to live in France for one year (1984/85 season, to
be continued…..)
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Photo From: Guerin Sportivo, June 20-26, 1984 (Juventus squad, 1983/84, Top, left to right: Michel Platini, Gaetano
Scirea, Sergio Brio, Stefano Tacconi, Claudio Gentile, Domenico Penzo,
Bottom, left to right: Antonio Cabrini, Massimo Bonini, Zbigniew Boniek,
Paolo Rossi, Marco Tardelli) The 1984/85 season
started with me living in a different country (France) for the first time. Fortunately, for me,
France was a footballing country with many outlets to follow my sport. In fact
the Television and Print access that I was exposed to was superior to what I
had been used to up to that point. In a way this made it
easier to cope with all the typical difficulties associated with such a move
and culture shock. It also helped that I could at least read in French prior to
being there. As far as magazines, I
was already familiar with the monthlies (Onze and Mondial). But I was
completely surprised upon discovering the weekly ‘France Football’. This
amazing magazine obviously emphasized on the local League scene, however, their
international news was just as amazing with local correspondents from each
country analyzing the events on and off the field. Needless to say, the
coverage of Serie A took slight precedence over the other Leagues. The Serie A
had been the Top League for decades, but certainly the presence of their
Champion Platini also increased interest for the French Press. We arrived in France
just a couple of months after the UEFA European Championship Finals and at this
point Michel Platini was the undisputed number one player in the world. That summer of 1984 a
multitude of foreign stars arrived in Italy. It seemed like every 1982 World
Cup star was hired. None was more significant than Argentina’s Diego Maradona
joining Napoli in a circus of publicity (not to mention a record fee) after two
disappointing seasons at Barcelona wrecked by injury. His compatriot Daniel
Bertoni joined him from Fiorentina.
Bayern Munich and West
Germany Captain Karl-Heinz Rummenigge left Bayern after a decade and joined
Internazionale Milano. Irish Midfielder Liam Brady joined him in Milan,
transferring from Sampdoria.
Scotland and Liverpool
midfielder Grame Souness, fresh off a Champions Cup triumph, joined Sampdoria,
teaming up with fellow Brit, English striker Trevor Francis, who had been at
Samp for two years now.
AC Milan, now under
old Manager Nils Liedholm back from AS Roma, also signed a British duo.
Manchester United midfielder Ray Wilkins and Portsmouth striker Mark Hateley
joined a squad already skippered by future Legend Franco Baresi that included
Mauro Tassoti, Alberigo Evani and veteran striker Paolo Virdis. Brazilian Junior arrived
from Flamengo, to join an ambitious Torino side that already contained Austrian
striker Walter Schachner and a newly arrived young striker from Inter, Aldo
Serena. Brazil Captain
Socrates joined Fiorentina from Corinthians to join fellow South American and
Argentina Captain Daniel Passarella.
West German midfielder
Hansi Muller, now a surplus to requirements at Inter joined newly promoted
Como, along with Swedish Dan Corneluisson who had just won the Bundesliga title
with Stuttgart. Newly promoted
Atalanta registered two Swedes, Lars Larsson and Glen Stromberg from Benfica
who would stay with them for eight seasons. 1970s Polish star
Wladyslaw Zmuda joined newly promoted Cremonese in a bid to avoid the already
predicted relegation spot. The most significant
and key foreign signings turned out to be those of Verona. West Germany’s hard
man Hans-Peter Briegel arrived from Kaiserslautern and Denmark striker Preben
Elkjaer-Larsen joined from Belgian side Lokeren after starring in the recent
Euros.
The previous seasons’
big two, Juventus and AS Roma held on to their foreign players already on their
books (Platini, Boniek, Falcao and Cerezo). Udinese were also
satisfied with their Brazilian pair of Zico and Edinho. As far as Italian
players, Juventus’ long serving defender Claudio Gentile left and joined
Fiorentina. In his place arrived Luciano Favero from Avellino. Striker Domenico
Penzo also left ‘La Vecchia Signora’ and joined Napoli, he was replaced by
Genoa’s Massimo Briaschi. Veteran midfielder
Franco Causio left Udinese and joined Inter, while Salvatore Bagni joined
Maradona at Napoli from Inter. Former AS Roma captain
Agostino Di Bartolomei rejoined his Manager Liedholm at AC Milan. The addition of all
these World stars such as Maradona, Rummenigge, Socrates, Junior, etc., only
increased the hype and prestige surrounding the Serie A. It was unquestionable
at this point; the Serie A was THE destination of the World’s best. A few weeks into the
season, the importance of the Serie A was exemplified by ‘France Football’
devoting an entire page that was taken from ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’. It
featured every match with lineups and player ratings as taken from the Italian
newspaper, along with the commentary from the local journalists. One must
remember such an undertaking and analysis was very rare at a time when
magazines just showed the scores and table positions with a written commentary
on the week’s events.
The television
coverage was just as strong; the highlights of Italian League matches were
regularly shown. In fact, Platini
himself hosted a weekly show with journalist Bernard Père called ‘Numero 10’. The program covered the League matches of
England, West Germany, and Spain with special emphasis on the Serie A, with
most of the matches’ highlights shown. As far as the season
itself, the usual contenders from the previous seasons, Juventus and AS Roma,
were having poor seasons, probably burnt out after so many closely contested
campaigns.
As Roma had to contend
with the new methods of new Swedish Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson who had arrived
from Benfica with the hard act of following fellow Swede Liedholm. Brazilian
star Falcao’s serious injury also disrupted their season and he was never the
same player afterwards. At Juve, Platini was
still scoring regularly despite the team’s overall poor campaign, he would end
up as the League’s top goalscorer for the third year in a row with 18 goals. Zbigniew Boniek was
still inconsistent in the League while performing better in the European Cup
stage. With the two giants
having poor seasons, the chasing pack took advantage. Napoli, despite all
the fanfare of Maradona’s arrival, was still a work in progress and would
endure an average season, though there was a promise of a brighter future
specially when Maradona performed better in the second half of the season.
Fiorentina also had a disappointing campaign, the early season injury of
Giancarlo Antognoni robbed them of their most creative element, while Socrates
was a fiasco and never settled in the Serie A. Zico would also endure a poor
season, in sharp contrast to his previous season, and would be relieved to rejoin
Flamengo at the send of the season. Verona, Torino and
Inter fought it out for the Scudetto. Verona led the pack from virtually the
very first match of the season (3 to 1 win vs. Maradona’s Napoli). The veteran
Manager Osvaldo Bagnoli had assembled a fine squad and many of the Italian
supporting cast would earn caps in the near future. These included Pietro
Fanna, Roberto Tricella, Antonio Di Gennaro and Giuseppe Galderisi.
Inter reinforced by
Rummenigge and Brady were Verona’s main rivals for most of the season, the team
included many current and future Italian national team players such as Walter
Zenga, Giuseppe Bergomi, Riccardo Ferri, Giuseppe Baresi, Antonio Sabato and
Alessandro Altobelli. In the end they finished third behind a strong Torino
squad with an impressive Junior. Sampdoria and AC Milan
rounded out the top five and European spots. Sampdoria won the
Coppa Italia (long after the season had ended) by defeating AC Milan. In the end Verona’s
consistency earned them a deserved Title. They had the best defense and only
lost two matches the entire season. Juventus and Roma
finished 6th and 7th respectively. Juventus
saved its best for the Champions Cup they desperately wanted to win after the
heartbreak vs. SV Hamburg two years before. Unfortunately the triumph vs.
Liverpool would be stained by the tragedy of Heysel. It also must be noted
that Paolo Maldini made his debut for AC Milan that season as a 16 year old. He
would be a fixture for the next 24 seasons. At the end of that
summer, my family and I once again left and emigrated to the United States as
our permanent residence (1985/86 season, to be continued…..)
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