Trap rues Del Piero miss

September 3, 2000
Onefootball.com

Giovanni Trapattoni's first game as manager of Italy started with a disappointing draw in Budapest on Sunday night and he did not spare Alessandro Del Piero criticism for missing a glorious chance.

It was hard for Trapattoni to collect his thoughts after Marco Delvecchio was cruelly denied a goal by a contentious offside decision in the last minute.

"We feel hard done by, by the draw," said Trapattoni. "Given what we showed out there tonight, we had the more chances to finish off the game but we failed to take advantage of them."

But it was a miss by Del Piero, the man who squandered two great chances against France in the European championship final, that played on the manger's mind the most.

"Del Piero played well," said Trapattoni. "But he needed to be more alert when we had the chance to score - he should have passed the ball to Inzaghi."

It is not the first time that the Juventus pair have not passed to each other. Last season the Juventus camp was said to be rife with rumours of disharmony and particular ill-feeling between the two, who, at one stage, were said to not be on speaking terms.

On several occasions the Italian press made an issue of the rift and this was even cited as of Zoff's reasons for not playing them together at Euro 2000.

But the new head coach was not wholly disappointed with the outcome. "A draw is not worthless," he said.

Italy's next match will pit them against the more dangerous Romania, who won their fixture against Lithuania on Sunday.
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