Marcello Lippi is stepping down as the Italy coach.
I’ve got to say, we’ll miss him. The man brought Italian football back to its core - brilliant attacking football on the back of a rock solid defense.
Throughout the entire tournament he made attacking substitutions and Italy always played attacking football. I had to put up with BBC commentary constantly predicting a “sit back and defend” style football, any time Italy scored a goal they’d say how boring the game would be and then Lippi would bring on Del Piero, Iaquinta and Inzaghi. Always attacking, always looking for that extra goal.
Italy didn’t play one game in that tournament of “negative football”. Even the final - we scored the only goal in open play and unfortunately our substitutions weakened our midfield to the extent that we let Viera and Zidane control the second half - if Lippi had wanted Italy to sit back and defend he wouldn’t have subbed on Del Piero and Iaquinta! Italy never played for penalties - don’t forget, before the glories of Sunday we’d crashed out of numerous competitions on penalties, not least the 94 World Cup Final (Boy did that ever suck).
In short, we played the best football in the tournament. The idiots who claim otherwise are the ones who still see the ghosts of 2002 and 2004 not the brilliant play of Lippi’s Azzurri.
In his short time as manager Marcello Lippi has left a great footballing heritage for his successor to follow - nurture an attacking game and Italy will continue to shine as a dominant force in football. There will never come a time when Italians bemoan their lack of quality defenders or be in dire need of a good Goalkeeper, if we concentrate on playing attacking football we can win Europe 2008 and the World Cup in 2010.
A great World Cup and a great team to watch. Grazie Marcello!
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at July 12, 2006 03:19 PM