Conservative Lippi keeps faith with tried and trusted cohort

Paddy Agnewon how Italy's manager has persevered with the old guard in crucial qualifier games in a bid to secure a place in South Africa

ON THE wall of the bar at the Italian Football Federation's centre of Coverciano, Florence, there is a very special, updated and up to the minute plastic plaque. Called La Legenda Azzurra, this particular plaque lists the most-capped Italian internationals of all time with names like Maldini, Zoff, Facchetti and Tardelli all prominent.

An intriguing aspect of the list, though, is three of Marcello Lippi’s current squad, namely 36-year-old Fabio Cannavaro, 31-year-old Gigi Buffon and 32-year-old Gianluca Zambrotta, feature in the top seven. Cannavaro, who is suspended for tonight’s game against Ireland, is of course the most-capped Italian of all time with 129 caps whilst Buffon weighs in at number four with 98 and Zambrotta at seven with 90. Between them, these three have a staggering 317 caps.

Even if it is true that the modern footballer plays more games than his predecessors, it says much about Lippi’s squad that three of his most regular choices find themselves high up in the all-time hit parade. Or, put it another way, if ever you had any doubts about just how many miles the Lippi squad has up on the clock, the all-time listing makes the point.

As Lippi prepares to wrap up qualifying Group Eight, either at Croke Park on Saturday or in Parma against Cyprus next Wednesday, he can ready himself for a sustained barrage of advice as to just how (and with just which players) he can next summer in South Africa defend the World Cup title won in Germany three years ago. None of this advice is likely to influence Lippi.

Throughout his career, either with Italy or with Juventus, he has maintained a healthy and usually flawlessly polite disregard for the Italian media’s musings.

He can now afford them even more “disregard”. After all, the results – five Serie A titles, one Champions League title and a World Cup – do a lot of talking all by themselves and tend to mean he speaks from a position of strength.

He has been there before, he has done it all and, what is more, he has won it all.

Yet, there he was on Tuesday of this week getting a little hot under the collar when he used the words of Dino Meneghin, a colleague from the world of basketball, to tell the hacks he was getting just a little “fed up” with them. Primarily, he is fed up with being “advised” to pick this or that player, sooner rather than later.

A fundamental concept behind this “advice” is that while Lippi put together an efficient and winning squad for Germany 2006, the time has come to move on. Many commentators in recent months have pointed back to the “error” made by 1982 World Cup winning coach, Enzo Bearzot, who, in the opinion of some, persisted much too long with his winning squad, taking too many of the 1982 heroes with him to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Critics are just lining up to tell Lippi the same thing, with regard to South Africa next year.

Talking to your correspondent last March and again after Italy’s disastrous showing at the Confederation Cup in South Africa this summer, Lippi had seemed to indicate that he, for one, would not be repeating the Bearzot mistake. There will be, indeed there has to be, room for fresh blood, he said.

Yet, when it came to arguably the most important game his side have played in this group, in Turin against Bulgaria last month, Lippi reverted to methods (and players) tried and true. In a game which Italy badly wanted to win, in order to travel to Dublin with that priceless four-point advantage, Lippi sent out a side which contained eight of the players who featured in Italy’s World Cup final win over France.

Lippi has always justified his faith in the 2006 squad by pointing out that a critical World Cup or European Championship qualifier is not the time to make anything other than very limited experiments. Against Bulgaria, he needed players he could rely on and they came up with the goods for him.

With qualification (almost) achieved, which way will Lippi now move? For the time being, the coach does not want to consider such a scenario but by next week, it could well be looking him in the face. Partly influenced by the Federation Cup disaster, will he make ever more room for “emerging” players such as Davide Santon (Inter), Mimmo Criscito (Genoa), Gaetano D’Agostino (Udinese), Claudio Marchisio (Juventus, ruled out of the game against Ireland because of a right knee problem), Giampaolo Pazzini (Sampdoria) and unnamed others? Or will he, in the end, turn to the tried and trusted, the guys up there on that all-time greats list.

For Lippi, in a winter when he will have lots of advice, particularly with regard to players like Antonio Cassano (Sampdoria) and about-to-be-naturalised Italo/Brazilian Amauri (Juventus), the question of just how sharply he should (or should not) cut the umbilical cord linking him to his greatest ever success is sure to weigh long and heavy.