From The Vault: Capello restricts the Dream Team
The image of Andoni Zubizarreta lying on the ground crying after the final whistle in the 1994 Champions League final was a sign of the ending — just like Homer Simpson’s “The end is near” meme. It wasn’t just a Champions League final. It was Zubizarreta’s last match for the club and the start of the end for the ‘Dream Team’.
After winning the Champions League in 1992 Barcelona were the favorites heading into the 1994 final. “Barcelona are favorites,” Johan Cruyff said. “We’re more complete, competitive and experienced than at Wembley. Milan are nothing out of this world. They base their game on defence, we base ours on attack.”
4–0 was the scoreline. Not for the ‘Dream Team’ but for the ‘Other’ team. It wasn’t just the loss but the manner of the loss. Fabio Capello’s AC Milan could have made it five or six easily.
Milan were missing Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta. They weren’t favorites. Even Paolo Maldini agrees on that. So what actually happened in Athens ?
Capello built on Arrigo Sacchi’s ideas after he succeeded Sacchi. “Capello had been a great footballer, so we continued Sacchi’s technical and tactical work but added his knowledge of great footballers to it.” Maldini elaborated.
On the day of the final, the shape was more of a 4–4–2 but with Marcel Desailly relatively deeper than the rest of the midfield quartet. Zvonimir Boban and Roberto Donadoni played out wide, but they were more interested in keeping the shape compact so their positioning was narrower.
Meanwhile, Cruyff’s dream team had to adjust to the UEFA regulations. At that time each team could only have 3 foreigners in their 16 man match-day squad. Cruyff had Romario, Hristo Stoichkov, Ronald Koeman and Michael Laudrup at that time. He left out Laudrup and unsurprisingly Laudrup left to their bitter rivals, Real Madrid. Cruyff’s shape wasn’t strictly a 4–3–3, Sergi who was the left back had the freedom to push forward when Barcelona were in possession. The back four was more of a back three when Barcelona had the ball.
For Barcelona to move the ball and stick to their identity Pep Guardiola had a major role in midfield and that was where Capello struck. Milan denied Barcelona the ease of progressing the ball centrally to Jose Maria Bakero and Guillermo Amor or even beyond.
The idea was to suffocate the Barca midfield. All of the Milan players had a role. First it was the two upfront, Daniele Massaro and Dejan Savicevic. The duo dropped regularly either to press Guardiola or position either side of him to prevent him from roaming in search of the pass.
The duo rotated their roles, one time it was Savicevic, the other time it was Massaro and sometimes it was both. Milan wanted the Barcelona players to either go backwards or sideways but not to Guardiola.
When the pressing came from midfield Massaro and Savicevic were near, denying Guardiola the option of moving with the ball to find an incisive pass forward.
An example in the second half shows Stoichkov surrounded by three Milan players, he decides to go for a back pass to Guardiola to reset the attack.
Unfortunately for Stoichkov, Savicevic is there as he was for most of the game, near Guardiola. The pressing of Guardiola limited the midfielder throughout the game.
The narrow midfield also helped with the pressing. Demetrio Albertini was the one tasked with pressing Guardiola when the press came from Milan’s midfield. This theoretically should have created a gap in Milan’s midfield but the narrowness of Boban and Donadoni solved this as they tucked inside to cover. Here, Sergi tries to play a pass to Amor in the space behind Albertini. Donadoni is alert and goes inside to cover the space.
As a result Albertini had license to press Guardiola aggressively without fear of creating a gap in midfield. This in addition to Massaro and Savicevic’s previously mentioned roles squeezed Guardiola. The shape in the pressing moments sometimes looked like a 4–3–1–2. Albertini was relentless
The narrowness of Boban and Donadoni also denied the Barca center backs the option of penetrative balls in the channels. They were forced to build up slower, thus allowing Albertini the time to go out and press Guardiola.
When Barca managed to play a line splitting pass through Milan, it was mainly central for Romario who dropped regularly. Filippo Galli and Maldini didn’t allow that as their role was to follow the Brazilian when he dropped and prevent him front linking up with the advancing Barca players.
The man-marking was strict and one of Galli and Maldini followed Romario even if it meant following him to the half way line.
Romario acted as the player between the lines for Barcelona and the idea would have been fruitful if not for Maldini and Galli’s impressive display on the day.
This also complemented Albertini’s pressing in case Romario wanted to drop and position himself inside the Milan midfield line. He couldn’t do that because the markers were breathing down his neck.
In the build up to Milan’s 3rd goal Koeman tried finding Romario with a direct ball. Galli, stuck to Romario like leech, won the header and restarted the attack for Milan.
The three ideas implemented by Capello and Milan completed each other. The narrowness of the midfield covered Albertini’s pressing of Guardiola. Guardiola himself couldn’t roam when pressed due to Massaro and Savicevic’s positioning. Finally, once Barca wanted to play direct with a player dropping, Galli and Maldini followed him and prevented any link up scenario.
The ‘Dream Team’ was humiliated on the biggest stage. Sebastiano Rossi, Milan’s goal keeper, had nothing to worry about throughout the 90 minutes as Capello’s strategy and the implementation from the Milan players meant that Barcelona’s stars were shackled.
Many years had passed and when reminding Capello of that Milan team, his words summarized it perfectly. “A superstar can help you win things but can also destroy what you are working towards. These players weren’t like that, they were true champions and not star players Those are two very different things.”
