Italy bank on Lippi’s experience
There are two ways of looking at reigning champions Italy at the World Cup in South Africa in June.
The first is that which coach Marcello Lippi will be focussing on, the fact that they are the holders, they have bags of experience from Lippi himself right through the team and they have a history and a culture of winning.
The other, though, is that this is a team in crisis with no star players, a squad made up mostly of players unknown outside Italy.
But first the pluses which starts of course with Lippi, the coach who led Italy to the title four years ago before stepping down, only to retake the reins two years later after Roberto Donadoni’s sacking.
The only things that count for Lippi are hard work and team ethic.
Of that group from 2006, few remain but amongst them are players certain to be starting in South Africa such as Gianluigi Buffon, Fabio Cannavaro, Andrea Pirlo and Daniele De Rossi. Their results have been very positive despite a disaster at last year’s Confederations Cup.
They qualified for this World Cup without any problems and made it the 2008 European Championships where they were beaten in the quarterfinals by Spain. — AFP
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