Nice, France - Italy drew 2-2 Wednesday in a friendly game
with Austria to mark the return of Marcello Lippi to the bench of the
world champions.
The Azzurri took off at a brisk pace in the French seaside town,
but fell two goals behind by the 40th minute as Emanuel Pogatetz and
the towering Marc Janko slammed two volleys past Gianluigi Buffon.
Italy had four good chances as Alberto Gilardino in the second
minute missed a close-range deflection off a low feed from Gianluca
Zambrotta, who had a drive saved on five minutes.
Gila aimed a feeble header off a Fabio Grosso cross on nine
minutes and had a further attempt blocked by Alex Manninger as he
burst into the area on 17 minutes.
As Italy prevailed on ball possession, the Austrians were ruthless
in converting their chances and on 14 minutes cheered Pogatetz for
connecting with a cross that the defence failed to clear.
Janko on 39 minutes displayed great timing when he flicked home
from close range beating Buffon again also thanks to a deflection
from Andrea Barzagli.
Another drive from Janko was saved shortly before Gila on 45
minutes nudged home a precise cross from Antonio Di Natale to pull
one back for Italy.
Alessandro Del Piero, who captained Italy on his 90th cap, came
close with a wide shot on 53 minutes, but the Azzurri's equalizing
efforts were rewarded only by a blunder from Ramazan Oczan.
The goalkeeper replaced Manninger after the break for a debut that
he marred on 67 minutes when he tried to punch a cross from Zambrotta
but sent the ball rolling into his own goal.
As Italy stepped up their pace, Oczan improved his goalkeeping
with good saves on efforts from Alberto Aquilani, Di Natale, Nicola
Legrottaglie and Daniele De Rossi.
'It is good to be back, but it was not so good to go down 2-0,'
Lippi said. 'We started with good things, then we went two down, due
to some dis-attention.
'Austria have great physical qualities, but then we started to
play faster and equalized with some luck.'
Lippi returned at Italy's helm this summer, replacing Roberto
Doandoni after two years of inactivity. He resigned in July 2006, a
few days after lifting Italy's fourth World Cup.
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