Giovanni Trapattoni was born in Cusano Milanino, near Milan, on 17 March 1939. A defensive midfielder for Milan from 1959 to 1971, he won two European Cups and is remembered for marking Pelé out of a match. As a coach he became the most decorated in Italian club history: with Juventus, whom he managed from 1976 to 1986 and again from 1991 to 1994, he won six Italian championships, the 1985 European Cup, the UEFA Cup, the Cup Winners' Cup and the Intercontinental Cup, and he remains the only manager to have won all three of the old European club competitions. He also won the championship with Internazionale in 1989 and coached Bayern Munich, Cagliari, Fiorentina and Italy at the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.

Benfica appointed him in July 2004, when he was sixty-five, and he stayed a single season and 51 matches, winning 30. Benfica won the 2004/05 championship, their first for eleven years, and lost the Taça de Portugal final to Vitória de Setúbal. His last match was a friendly at Odivelas on 31 May 2005, and he left that summer.

He brought the caution and the meticulousness of the Italian school: a well-protected defence, careful game management and a refusal to take risks with a lead, which ended a long drought but did not produce the football the stadium wanted. He went on to coach VfB Stuttgart and Red Bull Salzburg, winning two Austrian championships, and then managed the Republic of Ireland from 2008 to 2013, taking them to Euro 2012.