Marco Cassetti: ‘My dream is one day to manage a team and Watford would be fantastic’
Note: This interview was conducted on March 19, 2020, at the start of lockdown and some references will be out of date.
Marco Cassetti made almost 200 appearances for Roma, twice won the Coppa Italia and scored an iconic winner against rivals Lazio in Derby della Capitale. Yet the warmth with which he speaks about his time at Watford would have you thinking he spent far longer than two years in Hertfordshire.
Regardless, Cassetti is a modern-day Hornets legend. Part of the side which reached the 2013 Championship Play-Off Final, only to lose out to Crystal Palace in extra time, it’s safe to say he remembers his spell in England equally fondly.
“It was the best decision I’ve made in my life,” Cassetti, now 44, says from his family home in Brescia, in the north of Italy.
Affectionately remembered for his cultured yet passionate displays, initially as a wing-back but most successfully as part of a three-man defence, Cassetti has returned to Vicarage Road once since retirement — as a guest of the club for the win over Fulham in April 2019 — and he has ambitious designs on doing so again.
“I hope when this situation in the world is a little bit better I hope to be back soon,” Cassetti says. “My dream, now I’m doing my coaching studies, is one day to come back to England to manage a team and Watford would be fantastic.”
Not that the five-time Italian international has any designs on ousting current Watford head coach Nigel Pearson. Cassetti has been living in his homeland since 2015 but still keeps a keen eye on matters in WD18.
“I check every time they play,” he confirmed. “I try to see the games when Watford are on TV in Italy. I am very happy now with Nigel Pearson. The start of the season was very difficult with the two managers before. Now we have the possibility to stay in the Premier League. The last game against Liverpool was fantastic, after 44 unbeaten games, they played very well. That can be an injection of confidence.”
That win feels a world away, a time when COVID-19 was a threat lurking in the distance. Without any football for more than a fortnight, now seems like the perfect time to recall one of the most remarkable seasons in Watford’s recent history and who better to tell the tale than one of the protagonists?
The Italian Job
The Pozzo family’s protracted takeover was finally completed on June 29, 2012, ousting Laurence Bassini. What followed was a whirlwind. Sean Dyche was replaced by Gianfranco Zola and 16 new arrivals — 14 on loan and all but one, Nathaniel Chalobah, from either Udinese or Granada — pitched up.
Cassetti was among those, though he never set foot in Udine and joining Watford on loan from the Zebrette was merely a mechanism to get the deal done. However, things could have been very different for the then-35-year-old who had been released by Roma earlier in the summer.
“When I arrived in London I did ten days’ practice because they (Watford) wanted to know if I was fit,” Cassetti explains. “My agent called and said there was a team in Serie A who wanted to sign me (Genoa). But I told him no, I’d taken my decision and I would sign for Watford.”
It was a decision neither party would come to regret, though it took until mid-September for Cassetti to make his first in a side that had lost three in a row in all competitions.
“The most difficult thing for me was the language,” says Cassetti. “I studied English at primary school but it was basic and not the same when you try to speak every day and explain your ideas. After two or three months it was much better.”
Another big factor in Watford’s u-turn, not to mention Cassetti’s own improvement, was the change to a three-man defence. For his full debut against Brighton & Hove Albion, he was at right-back, alongside Nyron Nosworthy, Neuton and Daniel Pudil. By the end of the campaign, only Pudil was a regular with Cassetti moving inside to centre-half. It’s a decision he credits Zola for.
“I think it was the right choice Gianfranco made,” Cassetti says. “He asked me about it. I was in the side and I said ‘Yes’ because my pace wasn’t the same as when I was 26! There was Ikechi Anya who was quick and could do better than me.”
At home
By now Watford were beginning to find their rhythm. Off the pitch, Cassetti was settled in nearby St. Albans, a short hop to the club’s London Colney training ground, but a world away from the all-consuming chaos of life in Rome.
“I loved St. Albans,” admits Cassetti, who lived next door to fellow Hornet Alex Geijo. “It was comfortable for me to drive to the training ground. I had everything — restaurants, the train station if I wanted to go into London, a lot of parks, the Cathedral. It was fantastic. There’s a lot of history in St. Albans — Verulam Park. It’s not a metropolis like London, Rome or Milan but I was very comfortable there.”
On the field, the Hornets rose up the table to fight their way into play-off contention thanks to the shrewd management of former West Ham United boss Zola who somehow corralled a 40-strong squad thrown together in the final weeks of the transfer window into a cohesive unit.
“One of the best people I’ve met in football,” is Cassetti’s gushing assessment of the former Chelsea playmaker. “He was very genuine. A fantastic manager because he wanted to play some different football in the Championship. The first year he did fantastic work and after the second year, I said before, the people changed a lot. We had some problems and he decided to leave but I can say nothing bad about him.”
Do not scratch your eyes
As if any Hornets supporter could forget, the season culminated in one of the most dramatic play-off campaigns English football has ever witnessed. And Cassetti was more involved than most.
It was the stylish Italian defender who set up Matěj Vydra’s stunning equaliser against Leicester City in that dramatic second leg — ‘80 per cent me, 20 per cent Matej!’ he jokes — and it was the three-time Serie A runner-up who was penalised for the fateful penalty when referee Michael Oliver adjudged Anthony Knockaert to have been fouled in stoppage time.
“That wasn’t a penalty,” Cassetti says, evidently still irked by the whole incident. “Never. Never. Knockaert flies down like a butterfly but the referee whistled. Incredible penalty. But (Manuel) Almunia did his work. Absolutely [I bought him a drink], surely I said thank you!”
Twenty breathless seconds later — starting with Cassetti’s clearance no less — Watford secured their place at Wembley with Troy Deeney’s moment of redemption, crashing the ball home following a flowing breakaway move that encapsulated the best of Zola’s football.
“I can’t believe! From the back. Wow. Fantastic,” Cassetti enthuses. “The people after Troy scored. Anya made a perfect control after the penalty. Fernando (Forestieri) did a fantastic movement, a fantastic cross. Hoggy (Jonathan Hogg) could have tried to score but he saw Troy coming and put a perfect pass for him. The goal. People came onto the pitch — unbelievable.”
Heartbreak
Watford had to wait 15 days before facing Palace, a break which Cassetti felt was too long and affected the Hornets who underwhelmed on a boiling May Bank Holiday. “After two crazy semi-finals against Leicester we arrived in the final as favourites,” Cassetti says.
“I think there was too much time between the two games — between the second semi-final against Leicester at home — there were too many days to prepare. There was a Champions League Final before our game and we spent time in Mallorca to prepare for the game.”
Cassetti found himself at the centre of the crucial moment, once more penalised for a foul in the penalty area. This time he had no objections as Manchester United-bound Wilfried Zaha got the better of him.
“Zaha was a young player and I was already old,” Cassetti chuckles. “We’d played 90 minutes. I was thinking I’d put the ball out for a throw-in. But Zaha was very clever. He touched the ball before me and I couldn’t stop my leg and I fouled him. Just that. Zaha in the last three or four years has grown very well and I feel less guilty!
“Crystal Palace won the game and played better than us in the final. They deserved to win that game. This is the truth. We played very well in the season and I’m very happy that two years later Watford won promotion to the Premier League.”
Part two will be out soon.