How Denizli played into the hands of Italy

By Brian Glanville

BRUSSELS, JUNE 13. Managers make strange decisions, even at the International level. You might almost say, not least at the international level. What, for example, possessed the highly experienced Mustafa Denizli, the Turkish coach, to adopt such a negative stance in Arnhem against Italy, virtually saying to what had been a faltering and uncertain Italian team, here you are; here is the initiative. Attack us as you please! For this was what effectively, or ineffectively, what happened.

I for one had expected Turkey to take the bull by the horns and use its several gifted attackers to lay siege to an Italian defence which had been looking anything but secure this year, seeming ill adapted to the three at the back pattern unexpectedly imposed on it by Dino Zoff, once its celebrated goal-keeper, now an unhappy looking manager, pitchforked into the job, it seemed, because nobody else wanted it. But in the event what happened?

Where you might have expected a big centre forward Harkan Sukur to be abetted up front by the quick and incisive little 28-year- old Arif Erdem, his partner in the Galatasaray attack, Denizli - not for the first time, it must be stated - put Arif on the bench; and kept him there far too late in the game for it to make much of a difference. So Hakan, who had every incentive to show his form against Italy, given that he had failed with Torino, slunk hom, and re-emerged as a major force, was left on his own for practically the whole game, heavily and successfully marked by the Italian defenders.

After the game at the press conference, I raised the subject with Denizli. He mysteriously replied that yes, indeed Hakan had been ill-supported. This baffled me. Denzili is the manager. Denizli presumably sets the agenda, decided on the tactics. Why then was he so suicidally negative? Now Hakan joins Inter.

For Italians, the mind makes or mars

Italian teams traditionally win and lose in the mind, depending on confidence or lack of it. The loss through injury of the power Bobo Vieri has been a tremendous blow. In the 1998 World Cup he it was with his head or his formidable left foot who time after time turned games for the Italians. Without him the attack looks lightweight, even in Francesco Totti of Roma, Pippo Inzaghi of Juventus and Alex Del Piero, the game's most highly paid players, all have outstanding technique and pass. Perhaps one of the best auguries of the game for Zoff, who looked so much more cheerful than usual afterwards, was that as soon as Del Piero came on, he hit the bar with a cracking free kick. Totti had previously hit the bar and two Italian shots were cleared from the line.

The victory prompted Italian journalists to ask Zoff whether it was true that the Azzuri came to life only in ``official'' tournaments, rather than in friendly games. Zoff at first shrugged it away, then more or less admitted it, saying that half-way or three quarter way through the Italian season, the thought of the international players might well be elsewhere.

Yet when Holland struggled through its first game in Amsterdam against the Czechs, who themselves twice struck the bar and surely deserved to win, you had to think that friendly internationals are not always a poor guide to form. For the Dutch in their two years under the aegis of Frank Rijkaard, once their valiant midfielder, had notably failed to win games on the whole, even if they had twice overplayed the Germans. Largely made favourite for the tournament with a team so full of stars they could afford - or at least thought they could - to leave the sparkling Marc Overmans on the bench for most of the match, they in fact largely beat in vain against a muscular Czech defence while their own defence looked anything but secure, especially in the air.

The penalty awarded then almost at the death by the bald Italian referee, Collina, was harsh. If the penalty from which the Italians scored their second goal in Arnhem looked pretty soft, it was as nothing to the one which Collina granted to Holland. Remarkable how the Czechs can rise to the occasion of a major tournament.

Remember how unlucky they were to lose to Italy, who got a freak equaliser, in the Rome World Cup final of 1934. And in 1962 in Santiago, they reached another final, only to go down to Brazil. That fine adventurous midfielder, Pavel Nedved, making light of the huge exertions of Lazio's long season, undeterred by an yellow card and a foul which had him taken off on a stretcher (briefly) looks one of the tournament's best performers. The Czechs reached the final of Euro 96. This time luck seems to have deserted them.

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