After overcoming “high emotions” when making his UEFA European Championship debut against Romania on Friday, Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini is preparing for another stiff challenge, in the form of France danger men Franck Ribéry and Thierry Henry.

Promising pair
Chiellini was given his first taste of action in a major senior tournament when he was drafted into Roberto Donadoni’s Azzurri lineup for the 1-1 draw against Romania on Friday. One of five changes to the side which lost 3-0 against the Netherlands, Chiellini confessed the tension was high before the match at the Letzigrund Stadion in Zurich, but he forged a promising partnership in central defence alongside Christian Panucci, for whom he even set up the equalising goal. “Before the match I felt very emotional to be playing but then when I got on the pitch I just tried to concentrate on the match,” Chiellini said. “However, there’s no doubt the emotions were high. It takes a little while to get to know one another [in a new partnership] but Christian and I both went out of our way to help each other out and in the end it went pretty well for us.”

Buffon buffer
The 23-year-old full-back also recognises the importance of having a good goalkeeper to come to the rescue in times of need, and according to Chiellini, they do not come much better than his Juventus team-mate Gianluigi Buffon, who saved Adrian Mutu’s 81st-minute penalty to keep Italy’s UEFA EURO 2008™ hopes alive. “I’m very lucky I have him behind me all year round and he definitely makes you feel very safe and he always helps me out.” Italy are also hoping the Netherlands help them out in their final group match against Romania. An Azzurri win against France would take them into the quarter-finals provided the Oranje avoid defeat in Berne.”We’re better off not thinking about it because it would be a big mistake to waste energy thinking about the Netherlands against Romania,” said the centre-half, who has won eleven caps for his country. “Our match will be hard enough as it is as France are a tough side and we must think about them.

‘Dangerous players’
“From my point of view Franck Ribéry and Thierry Henry are the two most dangerous players. France are a great side and the match on Tuesday will be really tough. I saw their match against the Netherlands and when they were 1-0 down they had a couple of chances to equalise. They even had a good penalty shout turned down so they are not as bad as all that. Their result wasn’t a fair reflection of the match. They are a side to fear and respect but we’ll try to beat them.”

A veil of secrecy hung over the Italy camp on Thursday evening as they prepared for their crucial Group C tie with Romania at the Letzigrund Stadion.

Great form
Roberto Donadoni spoke of making major changes to the side that had lost 3-0 to the Netherlands on Monday, but was giving little away as he fielded questions from the massed ranks of Italian journalists. All he would confirm was that Giorgio Chiellini would start in defence and that Alessandro Del Piero would indeed be captaining the side. Del Piero’s inclusion has been an open secret since he brought Italy to life after coming on as a substitute against the Netherlands. He showed enough to keep his place in the side and now Italy’s most-capped player, with 87 appearances, will take over from goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon as skipper. It is a remarkable turnaround for a player who was only on the fringe of coach Donadoni’s plans at the turn of the year, but whose superb form since for Juventus has forced the Azzurri coach’s hand.

‘Turnaround’
“The fact there was a chance I would not make it into the squad and now I am captain for the game somehow reflects the reality of the last couple of months,” the 33-year-old said. “Now I just need to look ahead to this game without any pressure to perform, approaching it just like I would in the league.” Do that and Italy could have plenty to thank him for. Del Piero scored ten times in the final six weeks of the season to finish the Serie A campaign wth 21 goals and will be looking to provide a similar spark for the Azzurri on Friday. “We have all worked very hard together to prepare for this match,” he said. “Now we will need to transform our desire into positive results. When the expectations are high, we usually play at our best. Keeping cool heads is important, but we do that in every game. We need a boost and we’ll play with heart.”

‘Difficult group’
Del Piero’s relaxed demeanour belied the pressure on the Azzurri ahead of a match they cannot afford to lose if they are to reach the quarter-finals. The reaction to the loss to the Netherlands back home has been one of anger, but right-back Gianluca Zambrotta is determined his side will make amends aganst Romania. “We made some mistakes in the first game but we also did some things well towards the end and created some good chances,” he said. “I think we just need to improve our mentality a bit to be successful. We knew this would be a very difficult group.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures and Italy coach Roberto Donadoni will ring the changes as he looks to rescue the world champions’ UEFA EURO 2008™ campaign against Romania at the Letzigrund Stadion in Zurich on Friday.

Changes
Italy crashed to their worst defeat in 25 years in their Group C opener against the Netherlands and face another stern test against a Romania team buoyed by a goalless draw against France that has boosted their hopes of qualifying from the toughest of sections. Only Gianluigi Buffon, Luca Toni and Andrea Pirlo are deemed safe in an Italy side that could feature up to five changes according to Donadoni. “There will be four or five players who will play tomorrow who did not play in Berne,” said the Azzurri coach who has a full-strength squad at his disposal. “[Giorgio] Chiellini and [Alessandro] Del Piero will play, but I haven’t mentioned any other names. If you hypothesise they will be your mistakes.”

‘Winning fundamental’
Even so, there has been a frenzy of speculation in the Italian media over the lineup with Fabio Grosso and Antonio Cassano likely to come in after impressing as substitutes against the Netherlands. Donadoni said his side were “still hurting” from that result and would do everything to put it right. “Winning is fundamental for us,” he said. “We have worked towards that goal and will do everything to achieve it.” Italy recovered to reach the final of the 1994 FIFA World Cup after losing their first match, and a draw here would not spell the end of their hopes. With a repeat of their 2006 World Cup final to come against France, points are at a premium as Donadoni seeks to find the balance between defence and attack. “We mustn’t think if we have not scored by the fourth minute it is a disaster,” he said. “The game lasts 90 minutes and we must be patient.”

Pressure
Romania coach Victor Piţurcă feels both sides will be playing to win, but stressed that the pressure was on the Azzurri following their heaviest loss at a UEFA European Championship. “Italy need the victory more than we do,” said Piţurcă who revealed that striker Ciprian Marica was “almost certainly” out after suffering a blow to his head in training on Tuesday. “Italy are the favourites, but we came here to put on a good display and our main aim is to qualify for the knockout stage.”

More in attack
For the former FC Steaua Bucureşti striker, Friday’s match offers an opportunity to gain a measure of revenge against Donadoni after losing 4-0 to AC Milan in the 1989 European Champions Clubs’ Cup final. Having failed to create many openings in their first game, Piţurcă knows his side have to pose more of an attacking threat. “I haven’t decided who will start yet, but I might make some changes from the game against France. We will have to be vigilant in defence but there will also be times when we press in the opponents’ half. The team that’s better organised and can produce moments of inspiration will have the best chance of winning.”

In their worst case scenario, UEFA EURO 2008™ could end today for FIFA World Cup winners Italy, but are Luca Toni & co ready to turn things around?

Zurich showdown
Will they stay or will they go? That’s the key question In Zurich tonight when Italy face Romania. Should the 2006 World Cup winners slip up again, the Italians will be facing a situation that few had reckoned with prior to the tournament. A defeat for Roberto Donadoni’s men, coupled with a Dutch win against France later in the evening, would spell the end for Italy.

Questions, questions
Can the World Champions bounce back or was it just a slip-up? Are the Dutch too strong for Italy or was it just a flash in the pan? Can Italy handle France in their last game? Lots of questions there, but what are the answers? Tell us what your opinions are by joining the chat.

UEFA has emphasised that the goal scored by Netherlands striker Ruud van Nistelrooy in last night’s UEFA EURO 2008™ match against Italy in Berne was valid, and that referee Peter Fröjdfeldt acted correctly in awarding it.

Not offside
UEFA General Secretary David Taylor was reacting to claims from some quarters that Van Nistelrooy was standing in an offside position when he scored the first of the Netherlands’ goals in their 3-0 win. “I would like to take the opportunity to explain and emphasise that the goal was correctly awarded by the referee team,” he said. “I think there’s a lack of understanding among the general football public, and I think it’s understandable because this was an unusual situation. The player was not offside, because, in addition to the Italian goalkeeper, there was another Italian player in front of the goalscorer. Even though that other Italian player at the time had actually fallen off the pitch, his position was still relevant for the purposes of the offside law.”

Still involved
The starting point, said Mr Taylor, is the Laws of the Game – Law 11 – which deal with offside, whereby a player is in an offside position if he is nearer to his opponents’ goalline than both the ball and the second-last opponent. “There need to be two defenders involved,” the UEFA General Secretary said. “If you think back to the situation, the first is the goalkeeper, and the second is the defender who, because of his momentum, actually had left the field of play. But this defender was still deemed to be part of the game. Therefore he is taken into consideration as one of the last two opponents. As a result, Ruud van Nistelrooy was not nearer to the opponents’ goal than the second-last defender and, therefore, could not be in an offside position.

Rare incident
“This is a widely-known interpretation of the offside law among referees that is not generally known by the wider football public,” he continued. “Incidents like this are very unusual – although I’m informed that there was an incident like this about a month ago in a Swiss Super League match between FC Sion and FC Basel 1893. [It was] initially suggested that this [goal] was a mistake by the referee in terms of the offside law – the commentator later apologised publicly, as he didn’t realise that this was the correct application of the law.”

Law applied
Mr Taylor concluded: “So let’s be clear – the referees’ team applied the law in the correct manner. If we did not have this interpretation of the player being off the pitch then what could happen is that the defending team could use the tactic of stepping off the pitch deliberately to play players offside, and that clearly is unacceptable. The most simple and practical interpretation of the law in this instance is the one that is adopted by referees throughout the world – that is that unless you have permission from the referee to be off the pitch, you are deemed to be on it and deemed to be part of the game. That is why the Italian defender, even though his momentum had taken him off the pitch, was still deemed to be part of the game, and therefore the attacking player put the ball into the net, and it was a valid goal. The law in this place was applied absolutely correctly.”

Italy’s Luca Toni is confident the Azzurri will bounce back from their opening humbling by the Netherlands when they face Romania in their second Group C fixture on Friday. “We usually play our best in do-or-die games – now we’ll have to do it again,” said the FC Bayern München striker.

‘Very disappointed’
It was 30 years since Italy had lost to the Dutch, and never by a 3-0 scoreline. Toni headed a 12th-minute chance wide, after which the Oranje took control and triumphed thanks to goals from Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wesley Sneijder and Giovanni van Bronckhorst. “We were very disappointed after the game but we looked into each others’ eyes and all of us know perfectly what there is at stake in our next game against Romania,” said the 31-year-old.

‘Think positive’
“We started badly and defended too deeply in the first half. Then they scored from their first chance and everything became more difficult for us because they have great pace on the counterattack. It wasn’t our night. However, we have to forget this game quickly and start to think about the next two. With two good results we will go through – we have to think positive.”

Greater threat
Italy looked more threatening following the second-half introductions of Alessandro Del Piero, Fabio Grosso and Antonio Cassano, with Toni culpable of missing one clear opportunity and Netherlands No1 Edwin van der Sar equal to the others. Toni added: “We created a few chances but couldn’t take them to bring the match back to life. Cassano played a great ball for me but when I tried a lob it was a disaster. Now we have a few days to understand what went wrong and to try to play a great game against Romania.”

Buffon sorry
Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, handed the captaincy following the injury to Fabio Cannavaro, added: “We have to apologise to every Italian fan. We played very badly and deserved to lose. We can only congratulate the Netherlands on their performance. I hope we recover our usual pride for the next game.”