HAVE MARCELLO Lippi’s World Cup winners come to the end of the line? In the wake of Italy’s embarrassingly poor showing at the Confederations Cup in South Africa, the Italian coach yesterday suggested he would ring the changes by way of preparation for next year’s World Cup finals.
In other words, by the time Italy play a potentially all-decisive World Cup qualifier against Ireland in Dublin on October 12th, they may do so with a much changed side. Speaking in Johannesburg yesterday, Lippi conceded Italy’s showing in the Confederations Cup represented just about his “lowest moment” in his three years as national team coach.
Having struggled to beat the USA 3-1 in their opening game, despite having an extra man, Italy were then rocked in their second game when losing 1-0 to Egypt. However, those disappointing performances were as nothing compared to Italy’s 3-0 loss on Sunday night in Pretoria to Brazil.
Quite simply, Italy were run over by a Brazilian side that not only seemed light years ahead in skill and technique but which also seemed stronger, faster and fitter: “We’ve taken a right box on the ears and now we’re on the plane home. But the rebuilding of the national team is ongoing. I never said that it was finished or that we would go to the World Cup finals with these players. We’ll start the changes shortly, beginning with those under-21 players who have already proved themselves,” said Lippi yesterday.
In contrast to the senior team, Italy’s under-21 team have been performing well in the current European under-21 championships in Sweden, having drawn with Serbia and beaten host nation Sweden, in their opening two games. Italy tonight face Belarus in a game that may well earn them a semi-final spot.
Against Brazil in Pretoria on Sunday night, Italy started with eight players who featured in the Germany 2006 World Cup winning squad. With Zambrotta, Cannavaro, Gattuso, Grosso, Pirlo, Camoranesi, Toni and Iaquinta all performing some way short of their 2006 best in this tournament, there could be space next autumn for such as Inter full back Davide Santon, Sampdoria striker Giampaolo Pazzini, Udinese midfielder Gaetano D’Agostino, Roma midfielder Matteo Brighi, Roma defender Marco Motta, Juventus midfielder Paolo De Ceglie, Cagliari striker Roberto Acquafresca and Juventus front man Sebastian Govinco.
Lippi suggested yesterday that he had by and large stuck with his 2006 squad “because we had to qualify for the World Cup and that was a tough task with no room for experiments”.
It would seem, however, that there will be room for precisely those experiments in August when Italy meet Switzerland in a friendly in Bern, prior to September World Cup qualifiers against Georgia in Tiblissi and Bulgaria in Turin.
