Ferruccio Valcareggi (; 12 February 1919 – 2 November 2005) was an Italian football player and coach, who played as a midfielder. Playing career Valcareggi was born in Trieste, on 12 February 1919. A right–sided, offensive–minded, central midfielder – known as a mezzala in Italian football jargon –, he had a successful playing career, playing for nine different teams, including clubs such as Fiorentina, A.C. Milan, Bologna, and his home-town club Triestina, with whom he began his career in 1937, ending his playing career in 1954 with Piombino. He won the Coppa Alta Italia with Bologna in 1946. He scored 73 goals in 403 matches, 59 of which came in Serie A, in 270 appearances. He was never capped at international level, however. Managerial career Valcareggi is widely remembered for his success as a coach, in particular with Italy national football team. He began his coaching career as a player–manager with Piombino in 1952; after managing several Italian club sides (including Prato, helping the club to the 1956–57 Serie C title and Serie B promotion, as well as Atalanta and Fiorentina), he was named the Italian team's coach, replacing manager Edmondo Fabbri – under whom he served as an assistant – initially alongside Helenio Herrera, and later independently. He was in charge of the Italian national side between 1966 and 1974, guiding them to victory in the 1968 European Championship on home soil, and to the final in the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Under Valcareggi, Italy lost only six games in eight years. Despite his success with the national side, Valcareggi is also remembered for devising the infamous "staffetta" (relay) match strategy during the 1970 World Cup. Due to his focus on defensive stability, as well as the presence of two pure, prolific goalscoring strikers, Riva and Boninsegna, Valcareggi felt that it would not be possible to field Italy's two most revered advanced playmakers at the time, Gianni Rivera, and Sandro Mazzola, alongside each other. He believed the two creative players to be incompatible with each other, due to the rivalry between their respective clubs, and as he felt that deploying both players alongside the forwards would offset the balance within the starting line-up, in particular as Rivera, unlike Mazzola, was not renowned for his athleticism or defensive work-rate. When Mazzola had come down with a stomach flu, which affected his fitness, he therefore conceived the plan, which