A Fairy Tale of Six Months
The party had started well before Venezia had kicked off their final game against Reggina. It had actually started a week earlier, when a 1-1 away draw at Fidelis Andria had finally sent them to the finals. After 31 years, it was finally time for them to bid goodbye to the minor leagues. It was farewell to years of uncertainty over the status of their home ground, farewell to the memory of a collaboration with the nearby Mestre which in Venezia had raised the spectre of the city losing its team.
AC Venezia were about to play their final game in the Serie B; at the start of the 1998-99 season, they would be lining up in the Serie A.
It was only later, after the Piazza San Marco had been cleared of the green and red-tinted debris of festivities that people’s thoughts turned to what lay ahead. There were plenty of reasons to be confident. Beppe Marotta did not have a lot of experience, but in the three years as the club’s technical director, he had smartly put together a team that had managed to leave the minor leagues behind. The same could be said of Walter Novellino, the manager who had given the team its tactical identity through his rigid zonal-marking and 4-4-2 set-up.
That the promotion had been achieved off the backs of highly experienced players was also seen as a positive. The likes of Gianluca Luppi and Beppe Iachini had played hundreds of games in the Serie A—experience that was considered vital to avoid any shocks after Venezia’s elevation. During the summer, expert goalkeeper Massimo Taibi and striker Pippo Maniero also transferred to Venezia. They were both from AC Milan and were both eager to prove that they were capable of doing much better than they had in Milan.
Venezia had a plan. Now it only needed people to help deliver it.
However, football can be a ruthless master. Venezia failed to score even once in their first five Serie A games, and managed to collect a single humiliating point. The team had to wait two months to taste the rare victory; they won 2-0 at a home match against Lazio. Matters seemed to be improving towards the end of the first round, but a demoralising 6-2 defeat against Inter at San Siro sent them spiralling once again.
Venezia was on the brink of disaster.
Italians call the January transfer window the “mercato di riparazione”. Loosely translated, this means “the market for fixing problems”. It is a particularly apt description of the period for over-eager clubs that wait for the turn of the year to fix their problems by bringing in new players.
Venezia were certainly looking to fix some of their problems. Maurizio Zamparini would later come to be known as a football club owner with little patience for his managers. However, he had taken over Venezia back when the club used to participate in the Serie C2. He had helped it rise through three divisions, and now showed plenty of restraint by trusting the team’s manager, Novellino.
It wasn’t hard to understand that the team needed one extraordinary player along with all its experienced ones.
Venezia needed a bit of magic to pull it through. And a Christmas miracle did happen.
The magic came from Montevideo in Uruguay, through Milan. Alvaro Recoba had spent most of the season in front of the stands of the San Siro stadium. Purchased the previous season after Inter’s staff had been won over by his incredible skills, he was added to a squad that was hardly in need of creative talent. As a result, Recoba had to make do with a place at the back of a queue that was headed by Roberto Baggio, Andrea Pirlo, and Youri Djorkaeff.
It was tough going. In his first season he got to play eight times—scoring three incredible goals. (One of these was scored against Empoli from just over the midway line). It was hardly a triumph, but wasn’t a complete disaster either. The problem was that coach Gigi Simoni did not see in Recoba a player who fit into his team. So, by the middle of his second season, he had gotten to play just once.
When Recoba got the opportunity to play for Venezia, it was a win-win situation for him. At worst he would get to spend six months living in this beautiful city. At best he would also manage to show the football world what he was capable of achieving.
Recoba’s inclusion in the team showed immediate results. Contrary to Inter, he found a coach who was willing to shape the team to best suit Recoba’s talents. Venezia even sold off Stefan Schwoch—a club legend (thanks to his goals during the previous season’s promotion)—in order to make way for the Uruguayan. They were conscious that his initial impact with the Serie A had not been wholly convincing, but they were willing to work with him. Novellino in particular became a mentor to the player, encouraging him to adopt a healthier diet that would get him in the best shape for a talented football player.
That talent was immediately apparent. In his first game, Venezia held Juventus to a 1-1 draw. This was followed up with two wins—3-2 against Empoli and 2-1 against Bari. A 2-2 draw with Parma continued this positive run that stretched for another week when Zeman’s Roma came to town and were soundly beaten 3-1. It was a glorious game that marked Recoba’s first goal in Venezia’s colours—a resounding confirmation of his value to the team.
Suddenly Venezia were one of the league’s better teams, with the threat of relegation receding with the passing of each week. Recoba had transformed them through his exceptional dribbling ability, his precision on set pieces, his vision of the game and, eventually, his ability to score goals. No one benefitted more from the Uruguayan’s presence than Pippo Maniero, who was often to be found in the right spot to finish off what his strike partner had prepared.
“It was as if we had been playing together for ten years even if in truth we didn’t know each other,” Maniero later recalled. [1] “A look was enough to understand what I needed to do, I could immediately see where he was going to place the ball. I can’t explain it, we simply had natural chemistry.”
The striking partners. [ Source – mattinopadova]For all of his positive contribution on the field, Maniero also remembered how Recoba’s arrival left a deep impact within the club. “In TV we had seen some goals, some great moves by a player who was barely twenty years old. You can imagine how his arrival was seen in a ‘normal’ team like ours. The supporters went crazy whilst we as players were electrified even though we had never actually seen him play.”
A defeat away at AC Milan brought to an end Venezia’s positive run, but they immediately turned their luck around with two more victories against Perugia and Udinese. Another defeat at Bologna proved unlucky, but then came the game that cemented Recoba’s star status.
The visitors to Venezia’s Pier Luigi Penzo’s stadium were Fiorentina—managed by Giovanni Trapattoni and home to a number of great footballers, including superstar Gabriel Battistuta. They were pushing hard near the top end of the table, but this particular afternoon quickly turned into a nightmare for them.
Within 18 minutes of the start of the game, Venezia were awarded a free-kick outside of the box. It was fairly central, so more men than usual lined up in the wall as extra insurance. That, however, made no difference because Recoba effortlessly lifted the ball over them and into the top corner. Toldo could only look on and admire.
25 minutes later, the score was 2-0. Recoba hit a perfect corner kick that the unmarked Miceli headed home, much to the delight of the home crowd. Fiorentina were reeling, and before they could regroup at half-time, Recoba struck again. Venezia won another free-kick, again from outside the box but seemingly too angled for them to try hitting it directly. Not for Recoba, however, who hit it just perfectly beyond Toldo’s reach. The score now was 3-0.
After all that excitement, the second half proved to be fairly mundane. Fiorentina managed to score only one goal six minutes before the end of the game. That goal apparently re-awakened Recoba, who hit back soon afterwards. With Fiorentina defender Falcone seemingly guarding the ball as it went out for a goalkick, Recoba swooped in to keep it in with a skilful flick that got him into enough free space to deftly lob the ball over Toldo.
At Venezia, Recoba had found more than simply the opportunity to play. Venezia, as a club, was willing to support and believe in him. His aversion for training used to infuriate manager Novellino, but his ability to resolve games meant that he was often forgiven.
“He loved playing football, touching the ball. During the week it was a show to see him, especially during small sided games,” Maniero recalled.
“Then there were his freekicks. It wasn’t as if he practised them during the week but in games it all came to him naturally. Baggio [with whom Maniero played at Brescia] used to stay over every Friday to practise on his kick. It was the same with Mihajlovic: at the end of training he used to stay over and kick ten or twenty. Recoba didn’t, he was so aware of his abilities that perhaps he didn’t need to. Then when the occasion arose during the game he either put it in or went close.”
The victory over Fiorentina proved to be the high point of Venezia’s season. It also gave everyone within the club that extra bit of confidence needed to remain in the Serie A. They finally accomplished this achievement—ironically enough—against Inter in a 3-1 home win in the penultimate game of the season. That defeat helped nudge Inter out of the qualification spots for the UEFA Cup. A furious Massimo Moratti [Inter’s then owner] found himself questioning why Recoba had not found a space in Milan.
The South American hunters. [Source – calciomercato.com]As Maniero put it, “during those six months he never got a game wrong.” That removed all doubt about Recoba’s suitability for a big club.
The next summer, Recoba returned to Inter and stayed there for nine more seasons. Had Recoba’s career continued on this fairy tale trajectory, he would have gone on to live happily ever after. Instead, most of his career was spent showing sporadic brilliance. He never did touch the high that he experienced while playing for the lowly Venezia.
Paul Grech is the author of Il Re Calcio and Il Re Calcio (Volume II) two e-book collecting 10 stories each of players from the history of Italian football.
References
About Paul Grech
Paul Grech holds a fascination with the human side of football and stories that are slightly off centre. He is also the author of Il Re Calcio and Il Re Calcio Volume II, two e-books featuring ten little-known stories from the history of Italian football. They can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=il+re+calcio+paul+grech
