A master of the arts

AT 8am on the eve of the World Cup final last summer, so as to catch edition times back home, the Italian manager Arrigo Sacchi held a press conference in a Los Angeles hotel to announce the team that would play Brazil some 28 hours later. In central defence, taking the place of the captain Franco Baresi of Milan, would be Parma's Luigi Apolloni. Baresi had damaged a cartilage during a 1-0 win over Norway earlier in the tournament and was still recovering from an operation he had undergone at a hospital in New York, after which he had apparently been ruled out for the rest of the tournament, though he remained with the party.

His presence, as the elder statesman who had seen it all before, was undoubtedly invaluable, but his absence from the team a blessing in disguise, it was felt. Baresi had "gone" in football parlance; his pace was dwindling and he was now considered by many a liability. Such a proposition had been put to Sacchi, who was naturally unwilling to confirm it of his faithful servant after Italy had lost their opening match 1-0 to the Republic of Ireland.

But there, down in the Rose Bowl, Pasadena, in the midday heat of the Californian sun on that final Sunday, Baresi was warming up with the team. Apolloni had felt a leg injury in training the previous day and a delegation of senior players had come to Sacchi to plead the case for Baresi's inclusion. Baresi himself felt that his knee would stand the heat. Sacchi knew only too well the words of his predecessor Azeglio Vicini: "Baresi is one of the few players who can change the personality of a team."

He went on to confound the doubters and gave a towering display of the defensive arts in helping to subdue Romario and Bebeto as well as inspiring a weary Italian team who had been forced to fly across a continent while the Brazilians remained on the West Coast. The congnoscenti in Italy recognised this, unlike a host nation deflated by a goalless draw; he was never blamed for his miss in the penalty shoot-out, and his was less remembered than Roberto Baggio's as Brazil took the ultimate prize in an unsatisfactory end to a more than satisfactory tournament.

It was Baresi's last international hurrah and this Wednesday represents probably his last important club stand as Milan play Ajax in Vienna in the European Cup final. In a match that offers many fascinating contrasts - the Italians vastly experienced and solidly organised, the Dutch all vibrant youth and tactically flexible - not the least fascination will be in seeing how the defender who turned 35 this month will cope with the buzzing bright young things of Amsterdam.

Whatever the outcome, it will be tinged with sadness for Milan at the passing of an era. Baresi's light is dying; Marco Van Basten's has died. The centre-forward who has been to both clubs what Baresi has been as a centre-back - role model for players aspiring to the position - has bowed to the inevitable and announced his retirement because of an ankle injury. It heightens the realisation that such talents are to be enjoyed while they can.

To Baresi's team-mate the left-back Paolo Maldini has passed the unofficial title of the best defender in the world. He will do well to retain it for as long as Baresi did.

Franco Baresi, born in Travagliato, near Brescia, joined Milan as a 16- year-old and made his first-team debut the following year in a 2-1 win at Verona. When, in 1979, Milan won the Italian Championship, a glorious new future seemed to beckon but Milan were implicated in a bribes scandal and relegated in 1981. They won promotion immediately but, ill-equipped, were relegated again.

The form and promise of the young sweeper Baresi, blessed with remarkable pace, remained a constant, however, and he was included in the Italian squad that won the 1982 World Cup in Spain, though as understudy to the exceptional Gaetano Scirea. Injuries, and the consistent excellence of the Juventus defender, restricted Baresi to nine caps under Enzo Bearzot.

It was not until Silvio Berlusconi rescued Milan from the edge of bankruptcy in 1986 that the modern Milan took shape. Sacchi was brought in from Parma as manager, though the signs were not initially promising for Baresi. Sacchi planned to change Milan, Italian football indeed, by eschewing the traditional belt-and-braces five-man defence to play instead a more British back four. He urged Baresi to study videotapes of his former charge Signorini to see how it should be done.

Baresi at first took exception but warmed to the coach's theories. "Milan used to play the British zonal defensive system under Nils Liedholm but we were still a defensive team," Baresi said. "When Sacchi took over he decided to take our development a stage further and he allowed us to play a more open game. Defenders are now encouraged to go forward and attack."

Baresi was the ideal man for the system, a stopper with technique in the best Italian tradition, one with the bonuses of vision and positioning, but a ball player also, one who could bring it from defence and distribute with the passing ability of any midfield player.

His craggy, unshaven appearance has made him the photofit of the Italian defender, but from a stocky torso run legs less muscular than might be expected to feet sensitive to the feel of the ball. There is rarely these days any physical excess; anticipation renders it unnecessary.

"He's the best player I have ever had the pleasure to work with," said Ray Wilkins, signed at that time by Berlusconi. "In all the time I was at Milan, I could count on one hand the number of times he had an off day. The man's reading of the game is superb as far as his defensive work is concerned and his attacking instincts are second to none. He is very fast and he has got the feet of a centre-forward. He can pass equally well with either of them." He earned the nickname Franz, after Beckenbauer.

The Italian championship of 1988 and the arrival of the Dutch attacking trio of Ruud Gullit, Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard - with Baresi to marshal, they had no need of imported foreign defenders - heralded a golden harvest. It has seen Baresi's honours haul rise to five national titles and two European Cups.

There were, though, in 1989 the sins of a previous era to be paid for. The former club president Guiseppe Farina, the former coach Liedholm and five players - including Baresi - were among 20 people connected with the club convicted of financial irregularities. Baresi was fined some pounds 3,000 and given a suspended 10-month jail sentence.

It scarcely affected Baresi's peak years as captain of the national team under Vicini, who said: "Nowadays teams that play only defensively cannot succeed. I need more players like Franco who are on first-name terms with the ball." One recalls vividly Baresi's performance at the European Championship of 1988 when he shepherded a new breed of gambolling lambs to a 1-0 win over Spain in Frankfurt.

He retired from the national team in 1992 but it lasted six weeks until he returned with a masterly display against Scotland, whose then manager Andy Roxburgh described him as "the greatest organiser in the world". "I stayed at home and had my time with my family with no pressures," Baresi said. "But suddenly I realised that without the blue shirt my life didn't seem complete any more."

After 80 caps, it probably does now, though there remain new horizons, the most immediate the task against Ajax's Jari Litmanen and the 19-year- old Nigerian Nwanko Kanu. The rampaging running forward of Baresi may be a thing of the past, and we will look again for signs of the pace fading, but the sheer defensive nous and comfort on the ball should again be an object lesson for English defenders.

Baresi, an unassuming - though streetwise - home-loving man, recently turned down a lucrative move to the Japanese J-League to sign a new one- year contract with Milan. A coaching job is likely to be offered at the end of it. Milan, after all, know his value in being able to tutor the new pounds 4.5m signing from Paris St Germain, George Weah, in the ways of Italian defences. There is also his business, the Baresi fashion wear, to oversee.

The option of going for a fortune or staying was given to Baresi by Berlusconi. "We could not sell Franco," he had once said. "It would be like selling the flag." The standard will be duly raised on Wednesday.