Guido Baccani was born in Rome on April 6, 1882.
He was a keen sportsman and walked, ran, played water polo as well as a new sport, football.
He joined Lazio in February 1900, only a month after the sports club's foundation. He was an active member of the club in those exciting early years.
In 1902 he obtained the Audax walking patent by completing a 75-kilometre route in the Roman Castelli area. It was after admiring Fortunato Ballerini's impressive walking abilities that Baccani offered him the Lazio presidency in 1902.
Baccani then became Lazio’s first technical director alongside Sante Ancherani and between 1903 and 1906 was general secretary of the club.
In 1906 he played water polo for Lazio and at the same time became the Lazio football coach.
In 1907-08 Lazio won the Interregional Centre-South League.
The first official Roman football league started in 1909. Lazio won it winning all six games, beating Foot Ball Club di Roma, Juventus Roma and Fortitudo twice each.
They won it again the next two years and in 1912-13 as well as 1913-14 reached the national final but were well beaten by Pro Vercelli in a single match 6-0 and then by Casale 1-9 on aggregate. This was however an impressive feat by Lazio.
In 1914-15 Lazio again reached the national final but never got to play it as all sporting activities were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. The Scudetto was however controversially awarded to Genoa. An ongoing legal battle, not involving the club directly, is still trying to obtain some justice and possibly an ex aequo title.
In 1919 after the war he was made "Cavaliere della Corona D'Italia" (Order of the Crown of Italy for civilian and military merit). In this period, he also started working as a journalist, collaborating with "La Gazzetta dello Sport" and becoming editor of "La Nuova Italia Sportiva".
He remained at Lazio after the war while also doing some refereeing in the First Category. In 1923 Lazio won the Southern First Division but were then defeated by Genoa in the national final, this time fair and square, on the pitch 1-6 on aggregate.
He was manager/coach until 1924 when he was replaced by Lazio's first foreign manager, Hungarian Dezső Kőszegi. Baccani was a firm believer in amateur sport but the football world was already taking other directions.
On November 16, 1924, Baccani was nominated, alongside Augusto Rangone and Giuseppe Milan, as a member of the technical committee in charge of the Italian national team. He was instrumental in getting the first ever call up for Roman player, Fulvio Bernardini who he had worked with at Lazio. This task was carried out until 18 June 1925. On November 4 1925 Rangone was made Italy manager.
In 1929 Baccani was briefly manager of recently formed Roma. He lasted seven games, 2 wins (including Cremonese 9-0), 2 draws and 3 defeats and was replaced by Englishman Herbert Burgess.
Despite this last black mark on his curriculum Baccani was an important figure in Lazio's history in the first part of the 20th century. As a sportsman, technical director, general secretary and not least as coach for almost twenty years.
He died in Genova on March 4 1938.
In 1948 he was awarded the title of ‘Pioneer of Italian Football' by the FIGC (Italian Football Federation).
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