Франко Барези 66 насандаа таалал төгслөө

Franco Baresi, the legendary former AC Milan defender and Italy international, has passed away at the age of 66.

Baresi won six Serie A titles and three European Cups (Champions Leagues) during 20 seasons at Milan, and also lifted the 1982 World Cup with Italy.

This is the Baresi chapter from The Soccer 100, The Athletic’s definitive book on the 100 greatest players of all time.

Franco Baresi stood in the Amazon Theatre in Manaus. The salmon-pink opera house with a dome the colour of Brazil’s flag was built in 1896, when that city in the middle of the jungle became one of the richest on the planet during the rubber boom.

Baresi has received many invites since his retirement to promote football in some of the world’s most obscure places. But this was a vacation. He wanted to see the opera house in Manaus for himself out of the mutual respect that exists between him and the German director Werner Herzog, who shot the opening scenes of his 1982 film Fitzcarraldo there.

Baresi had been struck, and surprised, by a tribute Herzog once paid him. “There has never been a player who understood space so well,” he said at an event at a film festival in Pennabilli, near Rimini, in 2021. “He saw the game better than any player from any country, from any era.”

When Herzog surveyed the Amazon, he wished to convey to the audience the same vision and deep understanding of what lay in front of him, just as Baresi did for football from the back of the great AC Milan sides of the 1980s and 1990s. Both grew up on farms in the middle of nowhere, the horizon outstretched before them. Both became regista — “directors,” as deep-lying playmakers are known in Italy — one behind a movie camera, the other behind a football as a centre-back in arguably the best club side of all time.

While in Manaus, Baresi met a member of the Karapãna tribe. Her passion for archery had taken her far. Graciela Santos had become the first indigenous woman to represent Brazil in the sport. Baresi visited her village and related on a small level. He never forgot where he came from.

The Baresi family were raised in a horseshoe-shaped farmhouse in the countryside outside Travagliato, near Brescia in northern Italy. They were one of six families on the property and lived in an apartment next to the stalls housing a herd of cows. Young Franco milked them, took them out to pasture, and offered a hand when he could.

It was an isolating early life. Hard, too. When Baresi played football in the farmyard with his older siblings, Angelo and Beppe, they did so barefoot, so as not to ruin their only pairs of shoes. The ball itself was heavy and made of thick leather, an example of traditional craftsmanship. Baresi looked after it as well as he did when he turned professional. It was the only one on the farm and as the ball became scuffed and worn-out, he took some dried pork rind — the stuff used for bar snacks — and buffed it up to preserve it longer.

There was no television on the premises, only a radio that the Baresis huddled around to listen to the football. It was the 1960s; when, over the course of the decade, Milan and neighbours Inter reached five European Cup finals. Little did Franco and Beppe know at the time how significantly those clubs would figure in their destiny.

Their lives changed, unbeknown to them, when a priest in Travagliato, Don Piero, decided to start a parish football club with the support of a local businessman, Mario Verzeletti: Unione Sportiva Oratorio, or USO. In no time at all, the team began to attract scouts from the sides the Baresis used to listen to on the radio.

Giovanni Lorini, a midfielder, became the first of the Travagliato boys to pass a trial with Milan. He went on to make his Serie A debut with them and even won the Coppa Italia in 1977. Lorini was a year younger than Baresi’s eldest brother, Angelo, for whom USO perhaps came a little too late. Angelo was four years Franco’s senior and by the time recruiters began standing on the sidelines of USO games, he was already considered too old to be moulded by one of their academies.

That wasn’t the case, however, with Beppe, who had caught the attention of Inter. He was the first of the band of brothers to make it and acted as a North Star for Franco. Continuing to play with him was the ambition. Instead, Franco ended up playing against Beppe, with the Baresis captains of both Milan sides in the Derby della Madonnina.

Contrary to urban legend, Franco never tried out for Inter. The Nerazzurri did not even let it come to that. They did not think he was physically ready, even if the same scout who recommended Beppe, a certain Doctor Garoia, had promised: “Franchino, you’ll come with me to Inter.”

Fate intervened, though. Garoia suddenly passed away, and in the vacuum he left, USO turned to the competition instead.

It wasn’t as if Milan snapped him up, however. Baresi flunked a trial in Linate, near the city’s airport, where the academy players used to train. Don Piero and Verzeletti, however, were not prepared to take no for an answer.

They persuaded Milan to play a friendly with USO at Milanello, their bucolic training ground in the middle of the countryside north of the city. It reminded Baresi of home. He was put at ease by it and scored a goal that showcased all his talent. Baresi collected the ball on the edge of his own penalty area, buccaneered forward, combined with one team-mate then another, and went through one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

He thought he’d done enough, but questions remained about Baresi’s size. Milan rolled the dice, and when they settled, the faces showed the greatest captain in the history of the club.

Brothers Beppe (left) and Franco Baresi representing Inter and Milan respectively in the Derby delle Madonnina in 1979-80 (Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)

For the ultras in San Siro’s Curva Sud, there is only one capitano and it is not Gianni Rivera, nor is it Paolo Maldini. It’s him.

Baresi went through everything with Milan in ways the aforementioned greats did not. The club remain indistinguishable from the Maldini dynasty, with Cesare and Paolo lifting the European Cup and, more recently, Daniel making his Serie A debut in red and black.

But Milan and Baresi were family in more ways than one. By the time he moved to Milanello, Franco and his siblings were orphans. The club took him in and allowed the shy, taciturn boy to develop into one of Italian football’s most celebrated leaders.

Baresi first appeared for Milan in the spring of 1978. He was 17 and stepped in for Maurizio Turone, who was suspended for an away match against Hellas Verona. At the end of the season, Milan sold Turone and backed the kid to step into the breach.

He played every game the following year as Milan won the Scudetto for the first time in more than a decade. It wasn’t just any Scudetto, either. It was the 10th in the club’s history. Landmarks like these are commemorated in Italy with a gold star on the players’ shirts that ensures they twinkle in posterity.

Many associate Baresi with the glory to come, but Milan were sensationally relegated in 1980 for the first time in their history after their owner and a couple of players were implicated in the Totonero betting scandal. It wasn’t the last time they suffered demotion, either. After bouncing straight back up, Milan scored only once in the opening seven league games of the 1981-82 season and struggled for four months without Baresi, whose entire career fell into jeopardy.

Rather than an ACL tear, unrelenting pain in Baresi’s lower abdomen kept him on the sidelines. The club’s doctors thought it might be a hernia, but within a couple of weeks, Baresi was traumatised by suddenly being confined to a wheelchair. Whether he would ever play again became secondary to his ability to walk. More tests revealed he was suffering from a blood infection. Once diagnosed, Baresi underwent a course of antibiotics and made a full recovery.

Unfortunately for Milan, by the time he came back, they were still in critical condition. On the final day of the season, Milan went 2-0 behind against Cesena and looked doomed. Somehow they rallied and came back to win, but a result elsewhere — Napoli 2-2 Genoa — sealed their fate.

Franco Baresi, here competing with Juventus’ Roberto Baggio, spent his entire 20-year club career at Milan (Allsport UK /Allsport)

It didn’t stop Italy coach Enzo Bearzot from calling Baresi up for the World Cup that summer. He didn’t play a single minute, but a winners’ medal was nevertheless placed around his neck at the Bernabéu in Madrid after Italy defeated West Germany 3-1 in the final.

As was the case with some of Juventus’ Italian players in the tournament’s 2006 edition, notably Gianluigi Buffon and Alessandro Del Piero, Baresi flew home a world champion, paraded through Rome in triumph, and then prepared himself for life in the second division. He could have left Milan, but Baresi remembered how the club rallied around him when his parents passed away. Milan were his family now.

At 22, he strapped the captain’s armband around his bicep for the first time. Baresi did not remove it until he turned 37. Once again, he helped Milan regain their top-flight status and guided them from rock bottom to the top of the world.

Baresi played for three great Milan sides. First, the Scudetto della Stella team, then the Immortals and the Invincibles. He credited Nils Liedholm in particular with playing a transformative role in his career. The Swede had granted Baresi his debut in 1978, then, upon his return to the club in 1984, he introduced the zonal marking schemes he had used at Roma.

Everyone else in Italy played man-to-man with a libero sweeping up behind the rest of the defence. This change laid the groundwork for Liedholm’s successor, Arrigo Sacchi, to take the world by storm. It also allowed Baresi to express his full potential.

“Physically, I was not a giant,” he admitted in his memoir, “and that limited me when playing man-to-man. I made up for it by being aggressive, anticipating what my opponent was going to do and then moving into tight spaces at maximum speed. These were all trademarks of Liedholm’s system in which I went from being an old-school libero — a player detached from the rest of the defensive line by a few metres, acting as cover — to a centre-back in line with the rest of the defence, participating more actively in our attacks.”

The synchronicity of Milan’s offside line and the intensity of their pressing under Sacchi changed the game forever. So did the ambitious vision of their new owner Silvio Berlusconi, who cared as much about how Milan won as winning itself. They lifted the European Cup in 1989 and retained it the following year, a feat no one repeated until 2017, when Real Madrid went back-to-back.

When Sacchi left to take over the national team, a drop-off was expected. Instead, Milan went a record 58 league games without defeat and won the European Cup again in 1994.

Italy were expected to win the World Cup in the United States that year. Sacchi’s presence on the bench and a core of Milan players made them a formidable proposition. However, they lost their opening group game to the Republic of Ireland, went down to 10 men against Norway in the second before managing a 1-0 win, and thought Baresi’s tournament was over. He had torn a knee meniscus.

Yet 24 days later, Baresi improbably started the final against Brazil — and, to his mind, played the best game of his career, too. Bebeto later told him that strike partner Romário was fuming in the dressing room at half-time that Baresi had miraculously recovered. Nil-nil after 90 minutes, the game went to extra time and then penalties. Baresi had cramped up in the latter stages, but still led by example.

Franco Baresi took on the brilliance of Brazil’s Romário in the 1994 World Cup final (Daniel Garcia/AFP via Getty Images)

He put his hand up to take the first penalty, changed his mind last minute on where he wanted to place his shot, and missed.

As a child, Baresi had been left with the impression that crying was a sign of weakness. He did so only once, holding his pillow tight the night he heard Italy lose the 1970 World Cup final to Brazil on the radio. Years later, in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, he broke down in front of millions. This time, Baresi felt he could do it. He had nothing left to prove and wept from a position of strength.

Upon calling it quits after rupturing his Achilles tendon in 1997, Berlusconi retired the veteran’s jersey number and handed him a replica of the Ballon d’Or. Baresi never won one, but if anyone ever deserved the award, it is the greatest centre-back who ever played the game.

Someone should make a film about him. Maybe Werner Herzog.

Excerpted from The Soccer 100 by Oliver Kay & James Horncastle with The Athletic Soccer Staff, published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2025 by The Athletic Media Company. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers.