Juventus: Ranking the five best centre-backs of all time
3. Claudio Gentile
Don’t get confused by the name, people. The Libyan-born Claudio Gentile was a master of the darkest of defensive arts and rightfully earned the nickname “Gaddafi”.
Gentile embraced catenaccio and Italian ruggedness like a loving father, with his stellar career drenched in infamy. For Juventus, the defensive ‘stopper’ claimed six Scudetti as the Bianconeri embarked on a period of dominance under the studious Giovanni Trapattoni.
Gentile’s long-time partnership with his stark antithesis, Gaetano Scirea, proved wonderfully complementary as the former’s uncompromising nature worked in harmony with the latter’s astuteness. It was the ultimate yin and yang relationship, and one that proved pivotal in Juve’s success under Trapattoni.
Gentile played 135 of the 150 games during the Bianconeri’s five title-winning campaigns with Trap at the helm, as Juve conceded just 95 times in those 150. The fierce centre-half also missed just 24 Serie A games out of 270 between 1974/75 and 1982/83. A remarkable record considering his style and tag as one of the hardest, dirtiest players in history.
His proficiency as a man-marker, meanwhile, is why many consider Gentile as the finest defender of his kind. Trapattoni’s adaptability and perpetual desire to nullify opponents ensured Gentile was key during his reign. The defender was the antidote to creativity, the trequartista’s arch-nemesis and while the darkest of Gentile’s arts were saved for the international stage – the performance at the 1982 World Cup against Diego Maradona being the standout – the craftiest that Serie A had to offer at the time were hardly exempt from Gentile’s wrath.
"“Football is not for ballerinas.” – Gentile following his masterclass against Maradona in 1982."
Nevertheless, Gentile’s connotation as a defensive brute is somewhat misguided. Dismissed just once during his illustrious career, Gentile was a virtuoso stopper. The Italian stalwart perfected his craft and his style facilitated some of the most enthralling individual match-ups that the game’s ever seen.