Angry coach gets Lippi with Italian critics

ITALY coach Marcello Lippi expects his side to prove their critics wrong when they take on Ukraine in today’s World Cup quarter-final in Hamburg.

Lippi has been unhappy with the accusations made regarding his team’s performances.

“I have read in recent days that Italian football is old, retrograde, and I feel this is an exaggeration,” said Lippi.

“For one year now, Europe and the rest of the world have recognised that we play a modern style of football and they said so after our opening game against Ghana. To say certain things after only two or three games seems an exaggeration.”

Lippi was furious with reports suggesting Italy have been lucky so far in the tournament, particularly with their injury-time win over Australia.

“Fortune? I have had Totti out for three months before the World Cup,” said Lippi.

“We have had to deal with the match-fixing scandal in our nation and to make matters worse, I’ve had (Gianluca) Zambrotta, (Gennaro) Gattuso and (Alessandro) Nesta injured in Germany. I guess I have been fortunate!”

Nesta has failed to recover, while replacement Marco Materazzi is banned after a red card against the Australians.

Lippi’s opposite number, Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin, admits his World Cup debutants have already had a great tournament – but is still hoping for a bonus in the form of a victory over Italy.

However, Blokhin will be without injured striker Andriy Voronin, with youngster Artem Milevskyi, whose cheeky chipped penalty contributed to the shoot-out victory over Switzerland, likely to come in.

In defence, Andriy Rusol and Vyacheslav Sviderskyi and Vladimir Yezerskyi all return.