Lippi, Marcello

Marcello Lippi began his career in 1969 at the Sampdoria club, in the same year, having not played a single game as a basis, Lippi moved to Savona , where he spent 1 season. After that, Lippi returned to Sampdoria and played for the club for 10 seasons, playing in the libero position. Lippi also held 2 games for the Italian youth team until the age of 23. Lippi completed his career at the Pistoiese club in 1982 .

Lippi began his coaching career right after the player’s career ended, leading the youth team of Sampdoria Club. In 1985, he led the C2 series club, Pontedera . The next season, Lippi became the coach of Siena , but was fired after protests by fans dissatisfied with the game. In the 1988/1989 season, Lippi coached the Carrarese club, which, under his leadership, entered Serie B. This success allowed Lippi to draw the attention of Edmio Lugarezi , president of the Serie A club, Cesena . After this appointment, Lippi said: “I could have expected a challenge from a good Serie B club, but certainly not from one Serie A club.”

In his first season with Cesena, Lippi was able to achieve his task - to maintain a place in the highest Italian division. And the grateful tiffozi teams nicknamed Lippi " Paul Newman " because of the outward similarity of the team’s head coach and the famous American actor ^[4] . However, the following year, “Cesena” still flew into Serie B , for which, at the end of the season, Lippi was fired. In 1991, Lippi led the “ Lucchese ”, having achieved with this club 8th place in series B. The next season, Lippi became the Atalanta coach, with whom he took the 7th place in Serie A high for this club. In 1993, Lippi was appointed head coach of the Napoli club. With this team, Lippi took 6th place in the national championship, which made the club enter the UEFA Cup .

Juventus

In 1994, Luciano Moggi became president of one of the largest clubs in Italy, Juventus . One of the first actions as president of the club was an invitation to the post of head coach of the team Marcello Lippi. The change of leadership of the club led to the fact that many of the stars of the club left the ranks of Juve. Few believed in the possibility of “Old Signora” to win titles, but this period in the history of the club has become one of the most productive. Marcello built the team’s game according to the 4-2-3-1 scheme, which for some time made it one of the most popular in Europe. With Juventus, Lippi won three Italian championships, an Italian Cup , two Italian Super Cups , a Champions League , a UEFA Super Cup and an Intercontinental Cup , and also reached the UEFA Cup final and twice in the Champions League final. Lippi resigned from the post of coach of Juventus after a home defeat from Parma 2-4. As coach, he was replaced by Carlo Ancelotti .

Indeed, in the 90s, “ Real ” and “ Barcelona ” were interested in my services. But I did not want to consider their suggestions. The fact is that at that time I headed the Turin Juventus, and in those days it was a maximum ^[5] .

Inter Milan

After 4.5 years at Juventus, Lippi led the Internationale club. The period of Marcello’s work at Inter was characterized by conflicts with Roberto Baggio , which developed during the time of Baggio’s game in Juventus. After the club’s first season, Lippi asked the club’s president, Massimo Moratti , to break the contract with him, but Moratti did not agree. But at the beginning of the next season, after losing in the first round from Regina with a score of 1: 2, Lippi was fired. Prior to this defeat, Inter could not make it to the main tournament of the Champions League, losing to Helsingborg with a total score of 0: 1 (0: 1 at “away” and 0: 0 at home).

Juventus

In the summer of 2001, Lippi returned to Juventus. For three years on the coaching bench of the Bianconeri, Lippi won two Italian championships and two Italian Super Cups. He also, for the fourth time in his career, reached the Champions League final, but in it the club lost in the penalty shoot-out with a 2: 3 score to AC Milan .

Italy national team (2004-2006)

July 16, 2004 Lippi was appointed head coach of the Italian national team . In her first match under the leadership of Lippi, Italy lost to Iceland with a score of 0: 2. However, the team successfully passed qualifying matches for the 2006 World Cup , qualifying from 1st place in the group. In anticipation of the world championship, corruption scandal broke out in Italian football. One of the defendants was Lippi's son, who was one of the organizers of Gea World - a company accused of organizing contractual games. Some newspapers, as well as political parties, launched a campaign to discredit Lippi, as well as team members Fabio Cannavaro and Gianluigi Buffon , Juve players, calling for a boycott of the team’s games.

However, the campaign did not give a result, and Lippi led the team to win the World Cup, for the first time since 1982 . On July 12, 3 days after the World Cup final, Lippi announced that he did not intend to continue working with the national team. On December 11, Lippi received a special prize of the Golden Bench Award, awarded to the best coach of Serie A clubs according to his colleagues; so club coaches noted the role of Lippi in Italian football.

After leaving the national team, Lippi did not train, working as a commentator for SKY .

Italy national team (2008—2010)

On June 26, 2008 , after Roberto Donadoni was fired from the national team, Lippi headed the Italian team for the second time, despite the fact that he had previously made statements about the impossibility of his return to the coaching post of Azzurra Squadra. July 1 in Rome, Lippi was represented by the coach of the Italian team ^[6] . On August 20, Lippi held the first match in his period with Squadra Azzurra; in this game, Italy tied with Austria 2: 2. Despite the not too confident game at the beginning of the qualification, Italy regularly scored points. After the match between Italy and Montenegro , in which the Italians won 2-1, thanks to a double by Alberto Aquilani , Lippi caught up with Vittorio Pozzo , the coach of the 1930s team, in terms of the number of unbeaten matches (30 games). In the next game, November 19, 2008 , with Greece ending in a draw 1: 1, Lippi broke this record, becoming the best coach in the history of the Italian national team with the 31st match, who played games in a row without defeats ^[7] , also Lippi in the same the game reached a world record for the national teams, who played matches in a row without defeats, catching up with two other mentors, Javier Clemente , who had 31 unbeaten matches against Spain and Alfio Basile , who achieved the same result with Argentina ). The record was stopped in the next game, in which Italy lost to Brazil with a score of 0: 2. On March 28, Italy secured a qualification for the 2010 World Cup , after defeating Montenegro with a score of 2-0.

In June 2009, Italy for the first time participated in the Confederations Cup , but could not even leave the group: having won the USA with a 3-1 score in the first game, in the next two matches the Lippi team lost: first to Egypt (0: 1), and then Brazil (0: 3).

On the eve of the 2010 World Cup, it became known that after the championship the team will be headed by Cesare Prandelli ; whose candidacy Marcello supported ^[8] . In the tournament, Italy scored 2 points, tied twice with the national teams of Paraguay and New Zealand and lost to Slovakia , taking the last place in the group ^[9] . In the game with Slovakia, Italy conceded 3 goals, what happened to her for the first time in 40 years of participation in world championships ^[10] . After the “departure” of Italy, Lippi said:

“I take responsibility for this failure. There can be no excuses. If a team performs in horror in the eyes and head at a tournament such as the World Cup, then the coach has not prepared it well enough. I am very sorry for our fans. I hoped that this team would perform much better, but apparently, I could not prepare it correctly. I'm sorry to finish my work like this. I expected anything but that. I wish good luck to the winners and I want to thank everyone for the four years of work ” ^[11] .

In June 2011, Lippi expressed a desire to work with some national team ^[12] .

Guangzhou Evergrande

May 17, 2012 Lippi led the Chinese " Guangzhou Evergrand ". The contract was signed for a period of 2 years and 6 months ^{[13] [14]} . October 27, after the victory of "Guangzhou" over the " Jiangsu Saint ", the club, led by Marcello became the champion of the country ^[15] . In less than a month, on November 18, Lippi won the second trophy with the Guangzhou - the Chinese Cup.

China team

On October 22, 2016, Lippi led the Chinese team ^[16] . The Italian will earn approximately 20 million euros per year ^[17] . On November 15, 2016, in the first match under the leadership of Lippi, the Chinese team tied with Qatar 0-0 in the 2018 World Cup qualification tournament.

On January 25, 2019, Marcello Lippi resigned as head coach of the Chinese national football team ^[18] .

Lippi often clashed with soccer players. The conflict between Marcello and Roberto Baggio , which began in the 1994/1995 season, after Baggio began to be replaced by young Alessandro Del Piero, was especially famous. According to another version, Baggio was purposely expelled from his squad after he refused Lippi's request to “spy” on teammates ^[19] .

Lippi also clashed with Christian Panucci ^[20] . Bad relations between the player and the coach developed during Lippi's work with Inter, when Christian refused to enter the field in one of the championship matches. Due to this conflict, Lippi did not take Panucci to the 2006 World Cup , despite the fact that Panucci was considered stronger than the national team player, Christian Zacardo ^[21] .

Another known Lippi conflict was relations with Marco Di Vaio , who in 2004 chose to leave Juventus to Valencia . In February 2009, Luca Tony , the base player of the national team, asked Di Vaio to try on the national team, but Lippi did not listen to his striker ^[22] . Lippi also clashed with Antonio Cassano , who was not called up to the team either in 2006 or in 2009 . Cassano himself believed that while Lippi coached the national team, he would not be called to the team ^[23] .

Team

  Juventus

• Champion of Italy ( 5 ): 1994/1995 , 1996/1997 , 1997/1998 , 2001/2002 , 2002/2003
• Italian Cup Winner : 1994/1995
• Winner of the Italian Super Cup ( 4 ): 1995 , 1997 , 2002 , 2003
• Champions League Winner : 1995/1996
• UEFA Super Cup Winner : 1996
• Intercontinental Cup Winner : 1996

  Guangzhou Evergrand

• Champion of China ( 3 ): 2012 , 2013 , 2014
• China Cup Winner : 2012
• AFC Champions League Winner : 2013

  Italy national team

• World Champion : 2006

Personal

• Football coach of the year in Italy ( Oscar del Calcho ) ( 3 ): 1997, 1998, 2003
• Winner of the Golden Bench Trophy ( 2 ): 1995, 1996
• The best club coach in the world according to IFFIIS ( 2 ): 1996, 1998
• Soccer coach of the year according to Onze d'Or : 1997
• UEFA Coach of the Year : 1998
• World Soccer Magazine Best Coach of the Year : 2006
• Football coach of the year in the team according to IFFIIS: 2006
• Introduced to the Italian Football Hall of Fame : 2011
• China Football Association coach of the year: 2013
• Golden Foot : 2018 (in the “Football Legends” nomination)

•   Commander of the Order of Merit for the Italian Republic : December 12, 2006 ^[24] .

• Marcello Lippi on Goal.com