‘Darkest day’ for Italy
ROME:
Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro blamed fear for the reigning champions’ ignominious exit from the World Cup following a shock 3-2 defeat to debutants Slovakia.
“The fear is when you play for a team with four stars on it’s shirt [designating their four world titles] and you have to win,” he said. “The pressure is there, there was too much fear in playing, I was looking in their [the players] faces and they were too nervous. If you’re too nervous you don’t manage to be lucid.”
The other problem, according to the former world player of the year, is a lack of quality in Italy. “We don’t have any superstars, there are no Tottis or Del Pieros. Right now we’re not producing the material like previous generations.”
The team which crashed out in the World Cup produced the worst performance of any Italian lineup in the history of the competition, according to the country’s press. “It’s total darkness,” titled sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport. “The worst Italy we have ever seen go out.”
Tutto Sport compared the team to mozzarella cheese, while La Gazzetta said time had caught up with an ageing squad in the end.
It was the first time in 36 years that Italy had failed to progress through the first round of a World Cup and they repeated the feat of France, who fell as reigning champions in 2002.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 26th, 2010.
Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro blamed fear for the reigning champions’ ignominious exit from the World Cup following a shock 3-2 defeat to debutants Slovakia.
“The fear is when you play for a team with four stars on it’s shirt [designating their four world titles] and you have to win,” he said. “The pressure is there, there was too much fear in playing, I was looking in their [the players] faces and they were too nervous. If you’re too nervous you don’t manage to be lucid.”
The other problem, according to the former world player of the year, is a lack of quality in Italy. “We don’t have any superstars, there are no Tottis or Del Pieros. Right now we’re not producing the material like previous generations.”
The team which crashed out in the World Cup produced the worst performance of any Italian lineup in the history of the competition, according to the country’s press. “It’s total darkness,” titled sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport. “The worst Italy we have ever seen go out.”
Tutto Sport compared the team to mozzarella cheese, while La Gazzetta said time had caught up with an ageing squad in the end.
It was the first time in 36 years that Italy had failed to progress through the first round of a World Cup and they repeated the feat of France, who fell as reigning champions in 2002.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 26th, 2010.