Donadoni Gambles on Del Piero

Not sure if you heard, but Italy’s fist game did not go well. And Roberto Donadoni – quite rightly – took most of the blame. Mostly for his team selection.

So today it’s do or die for Donadoni as Italy face Romania in Group C. And – credit to the man – he’s effectively admitted he screwed up (withaout actually admitting it, but still) by making changes to the team that lost 3-0 to the Netherlands.

Donadoni has promised “three or four changes” to the XI that started Euro 2008, and named two of them. Giorgio Chiellini will play in defence, likely in place of Marco Materazzi who, if we’re honest, looked a shadow of his former self against Netherlands. Not so much Matrix (good solid film) as the two Matrix sequels (a bit confused).

More importantly – or at least more headline grabbingly – Donadoni has promised to give Alessandro Del Piero a start. The same Del Piero who very nearly didn’t make it to Euro 2008 after Donadoni dropped him from the Azzurri in September 2007. Despite some excellent Serie A form, Del Piero was at one point reduced to (jokingly, but still) offering the national team boss a nice bottle of wine if he needed some convincing.

QuiteDel Piero will take the playmaker role that was inexplicably absent in Italy’s first game, and as the most-capped Italy player on the field he’ll likely wear the armband tonight. So in some ways it’s all set up for a Del Piero fairy tale finish. Somewhere in Madrid, Raul is jealous.

For more ADP, visit Marco at Del Piero Offside.
For more on Italy visit Chris at the Italy Euro 2008 Blog.
And don’t forget the LiveBlog of Italy vs Romania tonight.