Arrigo Sacchi, former AC Milan and Italy manager, says he wouldn't have wanted to work with the Brazilian Ronaldo as a coach because he doesn't feel his team would have operated as effectively with him in the side.
Sacchi won two European Cups with AC Milan in 1989 and 1990, before leading Italy to the World Cup final in 1994. The Italian was a much-heralded manager in world football at the turn of the decade in 1990, and had spells back at Milan, Atletico Madrid and Parma towards the end of his management career from 1996 to 2001.
Ronaldo Nazario was announcing his name at PSV, Barcelona and Inter Milan at that stage - indeed, he won the 1997 Ballon d'Or - and Sacchi could feasily have signed him at any of the three aforementioned clubs he managed.
However, as he tells FourFourTwo, the pair simply wouldn't have bought into each other's methods.
"I’ve worked with [Brazilian] Ronaldo as a director of football at Real Madrid, but I wouldn’t have signed a player like him for my team, as I would have had to make some exceptions for him," Sacchi tells FFT.
"I always wanted my 11 players to work together as a collective unit. If a striker is slow in running back to his position, you’re only playing with 10; if it’s two players, you’re down to nine. The same is valid for defenders: they need to help those who play higher up the pitch."
Using Marco van Basten to highlight his point, Sacchi describes how the Dutchman had to adapt to his methodology when defending.
"At the start, Marco would tend to do that – at Ajax he was used to playing with his back to defenders, in order to facilitate runs into the penalty area from the second striker. At Milan, I wanted him to stay there more often.
"During his first year with us, he had a long injury right at the start of the season, at Sampdoria. Defenders were very physical and we lost him for most of the year.
"By the time he recovered six months later, he had understood why I wanted that from him, and he did it brilliantly. At one point, he even told me he had never thought I could do such a job in such a short period."
