Roberto Bettega
“…The 1960s had been a barren time for the game in Turin. Juventus had won only two scudetti: the first in 1960-61 – the swan song of the team spearheaded by the contrasting attacking duo of John Charles, tall and powerful, and Omar Sívori, short and tricky – and the second in 1966-67, when they pipped Inter by a single point on the last day of the season (an Inter side still aching from the battering it had taken from Celtic in the European Cup Final in Lisbon the Wednesday before). Torino, on the other hand, had begun the decade in Serie B and, once back in Serie A, won nothing more than a Coppa Italia, in 1968. … To rejuvenate a squad that already included the promising Pietro Anastasi, Antonello Cuccureddu and Giuseppe Furino, they brought the homegrown Roberto Bettega and Franco Causio back from loans in the provinces, and bought Fabio Capello and Luciano Spinosi from Roma. …”
The Blizzard
amazon: The Red Brigades: The Terrorists who Brought Italy to its Knees
The Years of Lead: Juventus, Torino and visiting Turin during Italy’s decade of political violence
Leave a reply
“Considering the attritional nature of Premier League football at the moment and the focus on dead-ball situations, you could be forgiven for looking at a 2-0 Manchester City win against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final, with two headers from a defender, and concluding it was another contest about physicality and getting the ball into the mixer. But City’s victory at Wembley on Sunday owed to a clever tactical plan, rotations of positions down the flank, and well-worked goals. …”
Scissors Kick 