Giuseppe "Gipo" Viani (13 September 1909 – 6 January 1969) was an Italian football player and manager from the Province of Treviso who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Playing career

Viani was born

Treviso Treviso ( , ; vec, Trevixo) is a city and '' comune'' in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 84,669 inhabitants (as of September 2017). Some 3,000 live within the Ven ...

. He played his entire career in the Italian football system; he is best known for his time with

Inter Milan Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is ...

and

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

Managerial career

After retiring from playing, Viani went on to manage many Italian football clubs, including

A.C. Milan Associazione Calcio Milan (), commonly referred to as AC Milan or simply Milan, is a professional Association football, football club in Milan, Italy, founded in 1899. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 ...

, Roma and the Italy national team amongst others; he coached Italy at the

1960 Summer Olympics The 1960 Summer Olympics ( it, Giochi Olimpici estivi del 1960), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad ( it, Giochi della XVII Olimpiade) and commonly known as Rome 1960 ( it, Roma 1960), were an international multi-sport event held ...

in Rome, alongside Nereo Rocco, helping the team to a fourth-place finish in the tournament.

Style of management

During his time with Salernitana in the 1940s, Viani devised a tactical system which came to be known in the Italian media as 'vianema', which was influenced by Karl Rappan's ''verrou'', and which in turn also inspired the Italian '' catenaccio'' defensive strategy later popularised by Rocco and

Helenio Herrera Helenio Herrera Gavilán (; 10 April 1910 – 9 November 1997) was an Argentine, naturalized French, football player and manager. He is best remembered for his success with the Inter Milan team known as ''Grande Inter'' in the 1960s. During h ...

. The system originated from an idea that one of the club's players – Antonio Valese – posed to the manager. Viani altered the English WM system – known as the ''sistema'' in Italy – by having his centre-half-back – known as the ''centromediano metodista'' or " metodista," in Italy – retreat into the defensive line to act as an additional defender and mark an opposing

centre-forward Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

, instead leaving his full-back (which, at the time, was similar to the modern centre-back role) free to function as what was essentially a precursor to the sweeper role, creating a 1–3–3–3 formation; he occasionally also used a defender in the centre-forward role, and wearing the number nine shirt, to track back and mark the opposing forwards, thus freeing up the full-backs form their marking duties. His team would defend behind the ball and subsequently look to score from counter–attacks. Although this ultra-defensive strategy was initially criticised by members of the Italian press, including journalist Gianni Brera, Andrea Schianchi of ''La Gazzetta dello Sport'' notes that this modification was designed to help smaller teams in Italy, as the man–to–man system often put players directly against one another, favouring the larger and wealthier teams with stronger individual players.

Honours

As a Player

Inter Milan *

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

: 1929–30

As a Manager

Salernitana *

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had been ...

: 1947–48 Roma *

: 1951–52 Milan *

: 1956–57, 1958–59 * European Cup runner-up: 1957–58

Individudal

* Italian Football Hall of Fame: 2018

References

1909 births 1969 deaths Sportspeople from Treviso Italian footballers Footballers from Veneto Association football midfielders Serie A players A.C.D. Treviso players Inter Milan players S.S. Lazio players U.S. Livorno 1915 players Juventus F.C. players A.S. Siracusa players U.S. Salernitana 1919 players Italian football managers Benevento Calcio managers U.S. Salernitana 1919 managers S.S.D. Lucchese 1905 managers Palermo F.C. managers A.S. Roma managers Bologna F.C. 1909 managers A.C. Milan managers Hellas Verona F.C. managers Italy national football team managers {{Italy-footy-bio-stub