Pirlo Blasts Donadoni's Tactics

La Nazionale endured a horrid first half as the Oranje jumped out to a 2-0 lead on half an hour in perhaps the most highly anticipated clash of the group stages.

Many have slammed Donadoni’s decision to start aging midfielder Massimo Ambrosini ahead of Roma’s Daniele De Rossi, and Pirlo followed suit by insisting he would have been allowed to influence the game more had De Rossi started instead.

“We certainly got off to a bad start,” said the AC Milan playmaker. “We didn’t intend to play like this, but we ran into an off day. There are another two games now and we have to play better and win.

“If De Rossi had played then I would’ve been further up the field, but there are 23 of us in the squad and the Coach makes his decisions.”

Hindsight

Italy improved greatly when Fabio Grosso came off the bench to slot in at left-back after the interval, resulting in Gianluca Zambrotta switching to the right side of defence and Christian Panucci moving into the centre.

While Pirlo believes Donadoni made the right moves regarding the back-line, he insisted the changes should have been made much sooner.

“We tried to break them down, but in the first half they always doubled up on the wings and blocked us off,” he said.

“In the second half with Grosso and Zambrotta we got to the byline a bit more. We probably should’ve had them on earlier, considering the way the game went, but it’s easy to say in hindsight.”

Disappointed

Marco van Basten’s men ruthlessly exploited the absence of Azzurri skipper Fabio Cannavaro, punishing the resulting lapses of concentration with swift, incisive counterattacks.

Pirlo admitted the team as whole were not wary enough in defence, but insisted they can only look forward to their upcoming clashes with Romania and France.

“The first goal was offside and then we conceded twice on counters that were created from our set plays at the other end, so we just weren’t attentive enough to their runs.

“We were all disappointed, but this match is over and we have to analyse our mistakes and ensure we don’t repeat them in the two decisive games.”

Mike Maguire