The Return of Zdenek Zeman

Zdenek Zeman is a mad genius, a legend of Italian calcio, and a bit of a prophet. His clubs play with wild abandon, an attractive style in sharp contrast with the perceived notions of the dour, sunless catenaccio matches on the peninsula, and he has been able to carve out his quixotic career without ever having taken on the reigns of a large club like Juventus or either Milan squads. A legendary career carved out early on for taking on lowly Foggia in the Italian third division and building them into a squad that could take on giants, the chain-smoking Czech coach almost torpedoed it for his outspoken diatribes against some of the most powerful figures in Italian football. When he spoke out against Luciano Moggi and specifically the manner in which he believed that Juventus at the time was administering performance enhancing drugs, doping their players to increase performance, ¨Moggi willfully¨, Zeman says, ¨ruined me.¨

¨I had been able to work peacefully as a trainer until 1998. All of my troubles started when I reported Juventus' wide use of doping. They played me off as an idiot, in the meantime Luciano Moggi was preventing clubs like Bologna and Palermo from signing me with his influence. I was one of the best European trainers, and that man willfully ruined me.¨ While doping was never proven, the scandal did bring to light other practices that Juventus and Moggi were performing and Calciopoli hit Italy. Juventus were relegated and the match-fixing scandal would taint Italian football forever. Something dark and sinister was living at the heart of Italian calcio, but Zeman would hardly call it an exoneration. He still had a hard time getting work.

It was more than a decade in the wilderness, but when he took on Pescara and brought his brilliant Zemanlandia brand of football to Abruzzo and then won  the Serie B title with again, like in his early years, a group of youngsters hungry for battle, the cult figure of Zdenek Zeman had returned to Serie A. The has been re-hired at AS Roma is an even greater surprise.

He rejoins Francesco Totti and the club he revitalized and where he is still adored and praised, especially by its talismanic captain, but he will have to bring a bit more of that Foggia magic with him, to revitalize Totti and give him his due but also to mold the disparate elements of the nine managers and nine  different footballing systems that came after he left Roma in 1998.

It will be a tough challenge, but it´s Zeman. Even if he fails we will be entertained to no end.

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