Former Italy manager Ferruccio Valcareggi, however, devised a different strategy altogether, which allowed him to use two playmakers during his run to the 1970 World Cup final, where Italy would be heavily defeated by Brazil, however. Due to his focus on defensive stability, as well as the presence of two pure, prolific goalscoring strikers, Luigi Riva and Roberto 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. He therefore conceived the infamous "staffetta" (relay) game-plan, which essentially consisted of Mazzola playing the first half of each match, whilst Rivera would play the second half; during Valcareggi's eight-year tenure with Italy, the national side only lost six matches. Despite Italy's victory at UEFA Euro 1968 and their second-place finish at the 1970 World Cup, the tactic was widely criticised by the media, in particular due to Italy's negative performance during the group-stage and in the final, despite demonstrating their ability to successfully apply a more offensive, exciting style of play with Rivera in the semi-final against West Germany. During the 1998 World Cup, Italy manager Cesare Maldini underwent similar widespread media criticism for employing a strategy reminiscent of the 1970 "staffetta" between Roberto Baggio and Alessandro Del Piero, who alternated occupying the creative second striker role, alongside an out-and-out striker or centre-forward (usually Christian Vieri or occasionally Filippo Inzaghi) in a 4–4–2 formation; manager Giovanni Trapattoni was also initially criticised for not fielding playmakers Francesco Totti and Del Piero alongside each other during the 2002 World Cup.