Lippi plays up Italian style

Euroscene / Paddy Agnew: If you suggest to Marcello Lippi, Italy's World Cup coach, that Italian football is all about a negative, defensive approach, you may not get quite the answer you expect.

The man who coached an aggressive, footballing Juventus side to five Serie A titles and four Champions League finals tends to feel that commentators who use the word "catenaccio" every time they see an Italian team are just a little out of touch.

"I think some foreign critics have too negative a view of Italian football," Lippi told The Irish Times last week, adding: "People are always saying that it is overly negative and defensive but I think that Italian clubs have shown that it is something else, it is not what it once was. No top level Italian club, for example, plays the old style, man-to-man marking game.

"Our football has evolved and if it had not, we would not continue to get good results in competitions like the Champions League"

With a little less than three months to the World Cup finals in Germany, Lippi has every reason to feel satisfied with progress thus far. Italy are unbeaten in a 16-match run.

Furthermore, in recent months, Lippi's team has beaten The Netherlands 3-1 and Germany 4-1 in prestige friendlies. Lippi, however, is careful not to talk up his side too much: "We've qualified for the World Cup but that's the least we're expected to do. We've done well against big teams like Holland and Germany.Wins like that help build confidence as you get towards the finals and, clearly, we don't feel ourselves inferior to anyone. Yet, that's different from saying we feel we're stronger than everybody else."

Lippi does admit to a minor sense of satisfaction with regard to the enthusiasm generated by his side's triumphant progress. For example, a recent opinion poll carried out by Rome-based sports daily, Corriere Dello Sport claims that 48.3 per cent of Italians now think Italy will make it to the World Cup final in Berlin "When I took over (in July 2004), it was a strange moment, there was plenty of disaffection vis a vis the national team from the fans and the general public and we have tried to revive enthusiasm. I think we have managed to do this."

Italy's last two tournaments, the 2002 World Cup finals and Euro 2004 in Portugal, ended with the Giovanni Trapattoni coached side seeming to retreat into just the negative, defensive format that Lippi claims to be no longer applicable to Italian football. Will that happen again in Germany?

"I hope not, I hope that we continue to play in Germany as we did in the qualifying games and recent friendlies, taking our football to the opposition. Last summer, we went to Dublin and played good football for an hour and won 2-1. We then went to Belarus and won a World Cup qualifier 4-1. Since then we've been to Holland and beaten the Dutch 3-1. If you play negative, defensive football, you don't get results like that. My teams always try to score goals and to win."

As he looks at Italy's first round opponents in Germany - Ghana, USA and Czech Republic, in that order - Lippi promises that he is taking nothing for granted, adding: "One thing is for sure, if Italy fails to get through the first round, it won't be because we've underestimated our opponents. We have plenty of respect for all our opponents, USA, Czech Republic and Ghana. I don't believe that in 2006, you can go to a World Cup tournament and get beaten because you didn't know much about your opponent. The reality is that, today, we know everything about every side going."

Curiously, Lippi does not agree with one of the current cliches of World Cup analysis, namely that the top-flight players are too tired to perform to their best after busy European league seasons: "I think the only thing that tires the players is reading every day how tired they will be when they get to the World Cup finals. Come on, we're talking about the World Cup finals, the greatest moment in a player's career. After 10-15 days of the right sort of training, they should be ready, they should be walking on air with the excitement and the honour of playing for their country in a World Cup finals tournament."

So where does that leave Italy? Does he agree with the eternal Italian view that anything less than a semi-final place is a failure.

"I don't like it when people tell me that if Italy don't reach the semi-final, then we've failed.

"That is starting off with a negative viewpoint. I think positive, I want my players to think positive and we'll take what comes"