Italy hero Del Piero plays down Totti rivalry

June 14, 2002
Daily Soccer

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AFP) - Alessandro Del Piero insisted that he and Francesco Totti can play together as he celebrated the goal that saw Italy scrape into the second phase of the World Cup.

The two have always been considered rivals for the tag of golden boy of Italian football and until Thursday night's nailbiting 1-1 draw with Mexico it was a battle that Del Piero seemed to be losing, having been eclipsed by Totti in Euro 2000 and looking to be a fringe player since arriving in Japan.

That all changed after 78 minutes when coach Giovanni Trapattoni withdrew Totti who had a good first half in the opening 2-0 victory over Ecuador but is otherwise yet to stamp his authority on the tournament and fulfil predictions of greatness.

And seven minutes later Del Piero headed Italy's equaliser from a cross by another substitute Vincenzo Montella.

But if Del Piero was pleased to upstage Totti he was not showing it.

"There is no problem playing with Totti," he told journalists after the match. "We can compliment each other and we have been used to playing with each other for two years in the national team."

He admitted that he and Montella, both marginalised until now in the tournament, were relishing their moment of success, saying: "Montella and I, we were both waiting for our chance and it was a nice feeling to see it all work out."

Del Piero thus finally made his mark on a major tournament at the fourth time of asking after flopping in Euro 96, France 98 and Euro 2000.

Trapattoni revealed after the match that he had given the disgruntled Juventus player a pep-talk earlier in the week.

"I spoke to him four or five days ago," said Trapattoni. "I told him what I thought his qualities were and what I expected from him."

It would not have been enough had Croatia beaten Ecuador in the other match at Yokohama won 1-0 by the South Americans - the biggest cheer of the night among Italian journalists came when Italy were trailing to Mexico and the news filtered through that Ecuador had scored.

But few could begrudge Italy who had two goals controversially disallowed in the 2-1 defeat by Croatia in Ibaraki last Saturday and had another Filippo Inzaghi strike disallowed at Oita when the score was 0-0.

If Italy are to take any positives from a difficult qualification it is that history shows that when they limp through qualifying they can go far.

In 1970 and 1994 they reached the final after poor qualifying campaigns but perhaps the most remarkable instance was in 1982 when they won their third title with some brilliant performances in the second phase against Argentina, Brazil, Poland and West Germany.

That looked an unlikely prospect when they drew all three group matches with Poland, Peru and Cameroon - had the Africans not had a legitimate-looking goal in the final group match disallowed Italy would have never progressed into round two.
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