The Times' Brian Glanville Profiles QPR's De Canio

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The Times - Brian Glanville
Luigi De Canio aims for pole position with grand prix money

It is a very long way from Matera to Shepherd’s Bush, but 50-year-old Luigi De Canio has made the journey and must raise Queens Park Rangers from the depths of the Coca-Cola Championship.
The money should be there because the club have been taken over by two big hitters, Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One plutocrat, and Flavio Briatore, another leading force in motor racing.
Some sceptics have questioned the intention of two wealthy men in taking over a club who have experienced better times, but there is encouragement that Briatore is showing great enthusiasm.
Between Matera, a small town in southern Italy, and the metropolis of London there is an abyss. I remember visiting Matera more than 50 years ago and frequenting Sasso Caveoso, where people lived in caves.
De Canio, a man of charm and modesty, insists that Matera has made great strides since then. It was there, with the local club, that he began an obscure playing career. As a manager, he has never been a Fabio Capello or a Marcello Lippi, but he has run a string of well-known clubs and has often saved them from impending disaster. A good omen for his hard task at QPR.
For De Canio, the watchword is “integration”; he wants to blend his training methods with those he finds with his present players, who, to his delight, have swiftly responded to his demands. .
De Canio says that he wants to thank players for their positive attitude in training, their cooperation “in the work that I have proposed to them”. There is not, he insists, such a great difference between English and Italian football. “English football shows an agonismo, a combatively, and a good, strongly emphasised technique,” he said. “Consequently, the ball is often in the air.”
This, however, he does not condemn. It leads, he thinks, to what he calls, though not critically, “a great aggression, which makes you play at speed, at greater risk of making mistakes”. He describes his home town as “the land of peasants, very simple people; they’ve stayed like that despite the town’s development”.
He began playing football “like everybody else, in the streets. There weren’t so many cars then. We played every hour of the day.” At 16 he turned out for Matera in Serie C1, as a defender or midfield player. A few years later Matera reached Serie B and sometime after that he decided that his true vocation was to be a coach, intent on “transmitting my own ideas, after having learnt from the others”.
Progress was steady, gradual and dogged. If any manager has paid his dues, it is surely De Canio, although he says that he has always refused to compromise. At 29 he began his new career as a player-manager with Pistilli, an amateur club, and later his professional career with Savoia in C2.
In 1993-94, “the team was in trouble, but we managed to save ourselves”. The pattern was set. Next to Tuscany and Siena, in C1: “A good championship with a good little team.” A place to which he was destined to return last season, saving the side, typically, this time from relegation from Serie A.
He’s worked largely, he says, in smaller clubs. “I could always develop young players,” he said. “This didn’t stop me having great satisfaction.”
Which can only bode well for Queens Park Rangers - The Times