Gilardino to the rescue with late hat-trick

Italy 3 Cyprus 2:THAT MAN Gilardino again. For more than an hour in Parma last night, little Cyprus were in dreamland, on the point of beating reigning World Champions Italy.

Then along came Alberto Gilardino, the man who scored that late equalizer at Croke Park last Saturday night, to score three goals in the last 14 minutes and guide Italy to a dramatic last gasp 3-2 home win in their final group match.

If you might have expected Italian coach Marcello Lippi to be relieved by such a dramatic comeback, you would be wrong. Speaking immediately after the match, a visibly furious Lippi lashed out at a small section of the fans who had spent much of the game shouting abuse at the (seemingly inept) home team: “Look, let me say something. We earned our mathematic qualification last Saturday in Dublin and as you can imagine, we were very, very pleased and we had a bit of a party.

“For tonight’s game, I changed the team entirely, all 11 players, something nobody ever does . . . So, as world champions, we come here to play a game that doesn’t matter at all and what happens.

“As soon as we have a bit of difficulty, with a team that has never played together before, the crowd, instead of getting behind them, starts shouting the names of other players and abuse such as “Go To Work”. That was simply shameful, really shameful”

Led by World Cup winner, Fabio Cannavaro, suspended against Ireland, this makeshift Italian side struggled against a more organised Cyprus. After only 12 minutes, the visitors were in front thanks to their captain Yiannis Okkas who struck home brilliantly after team-mate Konstantinou Makridis outwitted an attempted offside trap by the Italian defence. That bad start was compounded three minutes into the second half when Italian central defender Alessandro Gamberini only half-cleared a Cypriot cross and Chrysis Michail rifled home the second.

Italy continued to dominate with Cyprus more than happy to sit back. The best Cypriot intentions, however, were undone by that blistering final quarter hour from Gilardino who transformed the dominance into 78th, 81st and 92nd minute goals, all of them poached almost on the goal line.

The world champions march on and the poor old Cypriots went home empty-handed. Irish fans can sympathise with them, after all we know all about late disappointments.

ITALY:Marchetti, Santon, Bocchetti, Gamberini, Cannavaro, D'Agostino (De Rossi 66), Pepe (Camoranesi 46), Gattuso, Gilardino, Rossi (Di Natale 46), Quagliarella. Subs Not Used: De Sanctis, Chiellini, Zambrotta, Iaquinta. Booked: Gattuso.

CYPRUS:Avgousti, Charalambous, Christou (Satsias 30), Chrysostomos, Charalambidis, Marios, Makridis, Aloneftis (Michael Constantinou 73), Avraam, Dobrasinovic, Okkas (Alexandrou 84). Subs Not Used: Morphis, Andreas Constantinou, Maragos, Nicolau. Booked: Satsias, Marios.

Referee:Alon Yefet (Israel).