The Italian former Tottenham coach has emerged as an unlikely hero for one country competing at the Copa America this week

The Italian former Tottenham coach has emerged as an unlikely hero for one country competing at the Copa America this week.

Former Tottenham set-piece coach Gianni Vio has emerged as a hero for the USA this week during their Copa America opener against Bolivia on Sunday.

When former Chelsea and current AC Milan midfielder Christian Pulisic played his part in a short corner routine less than three minutes into the match against Bolivia, he received the ball from Timothy Weah and the USA captain pushed the ball to the edge of the penalty area before unleashing a ferocious curling effort into the top right corner of the net.

The 25-year-old ran to the bench to celebrate and searched up in the stands before finding who he was looking for and he pointed with both hands to one man in the stands. It was Vio.

The 71-year-old Italian set-piece expert was a popular figure at Spurs in the 2022/23 season as a freelance coach under Antonio Conte, working on the club’s attacking set-pieces, before departing last summer under the change of regime. The former banker has spent the past 20 years studying set-pieces, drawing up more than 5,000 routines, and has been credited with improving the fortunes in dead ball situations of various clubs as well as Robert Mancini’s Italian side as they won the European Championships in 2021.

Since leaving Tottenham Vio has been working with both Watford in the Championship and with the American national side. After Sunday evening’s 2-0 win against Bolivia at the expanded Copa America, Pulisic praised the Italian coach.

“Shout out to Gianni on that one who had a really nice play drawn up,” he said in an interview with Fox Sports. “We had the idea if they only brought one out [to defend the corner taker] we’d take that two-on-one and basically the idea was just to shoot at the back post and things can happen. Sure enough, it went in.”


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