Pozzo prepares Azzurri push - FIFA WORLD CUP ARCHIVE
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He was known as ‘Il Vecchio Maestro’ (The Old Master), and for good reason.
Vittorio Pozzo remains to this day the only man to have won two FIFA World Cups™ as coach, and 1934 was his first.
This image shows the veteran coach (far left) readying his players for extra time in that edition’s Final against Czechoslovakia, with the score locked at 1-1.
Hosts Italy had been nine minutes away from a shock defeat when Raimundo Orsi’s equaliser, along with a late tactical switch by Pozzo, gave them the initiative.
The former journalist pulled the great Giuseppe Meazza into a more withdrawn role, shifting Angelo Schiavio to centre-forward, and the change paid off five minutes into extra time when the latter guided home a dramatic winner.
The goal settled a gruelling Final played out in temperatures of over 40ºC, leaving their coach to attribute Italy's triumph to “hard work, moral steadfastness, a spirit of self-sacrifice and the unshakeable desire of a group of men”.
Those same qualities would, of course, be in evidence again four years later, when Pozzo and Gli Azzurri made history by retaining the Trophy in France.