Giovanni Trapattoni

After a successful playing career with A. C. Milan, Giovanni Trapattoni went on to become one of the best coaches in Italian football. He spent most of his career with Milan and won the League title as a player in 1962 and 1968. He also won the Italian Cup in 1967, the European Cup twice (1963 and 1969), and the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1968. Trappattoni finished his career at the end of the 1971/72 season, after 10 games with Varese.

As a manager/coach, Trapattoni joined a select band of five managers to win League titles in four different countries. He won 10 titles in Italy with Juventus, A. C. Milan and Internazionale, and then enjoyed similar success with Bayern München (Germany), Benfica (Portugal) and Red Bull Salzburg (Austria). Alongside Udo Lattek, Trapattoni is the only other coach to have won all three major European club competitions, the European Cup, UEFA Cup and Cup-Winners’ Cup. Uniquely, he was the only one to do so with the same club, Juventus. In addition, Trapattoni won the European Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup with Juventus, in 1984 and 1985 respectively. He is one of a small group to have won European Cup, Cup-Winners’ Cup and Intercontinental Cup as both player and manager.

Trapattoni’s personal honours include European Coach of the Year (1985 and 1991), European Coach of the Season (1985 and 1993) and membership into the Italian Football Hall of Fame (2012).

As a player, Trapattoni won 17 full international caps and was a member of the 1960 Italian Olympic, and 1962 World Cup squads, although he did not play in the latter. He went on to coach the Italian national side, but could not replicate his success as a player, and suffered early exits from both the 2002 World Cup, and Euro 2004. Between 2008-13 he was manager of the Republic of Ireland, and led them to two European Championships, in 2012 (their first for 24 years), and 2016. He narrowly missed taking Ireland to the 2010 World Cup finals, when they lost a qualifying play-off match to France after Thierry Henry twice illegally handled the ball, before it found its way to Willam Gallas, who scored France’s extra-time winner.