Aurora Road

 

Buffon apologises to fans

Gianluigi Buffon has apologised to all the Italy fans after what he dubbed “one of the worst performances in my Italy career.”

The Azzurri got off to a disastrous start at Euro 2008 by losing 3-0 to Holland and, although Coach Roberto Donadoni tried to minimise the extent of the problems, his goalkeeper did not agree.

“I hope we can use this as a starting point. It was one of the worst performances since I have been in the Nazionale and Holland legitimised their victory with a good game,” said the captain.

“I have spoken to all the players and we all agreed to apologise to the Italy fans. We honestly didn’t expect this to happen.”

“It’s true Van Nistelrooy was offside, but we cannot clutch at straws during a game that was so obviously won by Holland.

“We can only apologise to the supporters for all that happened tonight and promise to do better against Romania and France.”

 

I feel sorry for Gigi. He has done his best and it's really not his fault that Italy fucked up today. To be honest, he should be the one getting apologies from his teammates. *pet poor Gigi*

 

Pirlo critiques Don decisions

Andrea Pirlo took issue with Roberto Donadoni’s tactical choices, specifically the use of full-backs and delays in substitutions.

“We certainly got off to a bad start. 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,” he said after the 3-0 defeat to Holland.

“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.”

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

“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,” continued Pirlo.

“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.” 

 

Pirlo basically summed up all my thoughts on the game, no wonder I love him so much.

 

 

Donadoni: We weren't that bad

Roberto Donadoni insists this was not the worst match of his Italy reign and felt there was some big tournament nerves.

“I don’t want to say it was our worst performance ever. We conceded two goals by making mistakes, but I wouldn’t say Holland completely overran us,” he said after the 3-0 defeat.

“We had a tricky start and were perhaps anxious at starting the European Championship, but we fought back in the second half and did a lot better, we just failed to put the ball in the back of the net.”

“Now we have to recover our physical and psychological energy to field a fresh side against Romania.”

Daniele De Rossi was expected to start in midfield, but was surprisingly left on the bench throughout in favour of an all-Milan midfield of Gennaro Gattuso, Massimo Ambrosini and Andrea Pirlo. 

“I evaluated it this way, but never said otherwise. It was the media that assumed I would play De Rossi, so you’d have to ask yourselves why you were wrong about it,” mused the Coach.

“We have to look forward, there are another two games in this group and we’ll see what will happen.” 

 

Oh really? We weren't that bad?! Are you sure?

And instead of blaming the media, couldn't you just acknowledge that you have made a wrong decision for not playing DDR?

Well, at least he's staying positive, let's see what changes he will make for the remaining games. *shrug*