During his time with Salernitana in the 1940s, Viani devised a tactical system which came to be known in the Italian media as '
vianema', which was influenced by
Karl Rappan's
verrou, and which in turn also inspired the Italian
catenaccio defensive strategy later popularised by Rocco and
Helenio Herrera. The system originated from an idea that one of the club's players – Antonio Valese – posed to the manager. Viani altered the English
WM system – known as the
sistema in Italy – by having his
centre-half-back – known as the
centromediano metodista or "
metodista," in Italy – retreat into the defensive line to act as an additional defender and mark an opposing
centre-forward, instead leaving his
full-back (which, at the time, was similar to the modern
centre-back role) free to function as what was essentially a precursor to the
sweeper role, creating a 1–3–3–3 formation; he occasionally also used a defender in the centre-forward role, and wearing the
number nine shirt, to track back and mark the opposing forwards, thus freeing up the full-backs form their marking duties. His team would defend behind the ball and subsequently look to score from counter–attacks. Although this ultra-defensive strategy was initially criticised by members of the Italian press, including journalist
Gianni Brera, Andrea Schianchi of
La Gazzetta dello Sport notes that this modification was designed to help smaller teams in Italy, as the man–to–man system often put players directly against one another, favouring the larger and wealthier teams with stronger individual players. ==Honours==