From: marco@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (Marco Petroni)
Subject: World Cup Qualifying, Europe Group 1: Italy - Switzerland Result
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines, Montreal, Canada
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 01:04:00 GMT

Europe Group 1 World Cup Qualifying Game, played Wednesday, October 14, 1992:

Italy		2	Switzerland	2
   Baggio 37' (2nd)	   Ohrel     17'
   Eranio 45' (2nd)	   Chapuisat 21'

Italy started on their road to USA '94 today, and their opponent was a
team that had gone into the match with a 2-0 record. The Italians
started off very shakily, especially in defense, where the opposing
players seemed to repeatedly catch the Italian defense flat-footed.
The Swiss started playing defensively from the start, but upon seeing
the Italian mid-field and defense to be very nervous at the start,
began to pressed the Azzurri.  The two Swiss goals came thanks to two
errors by Milan defender Costacurta. The short time between the two
goals and the dire condition of the Italian defense left the Italian
fans in shock and caused jubilation on the Swiss bench, as it seemed
that they were on their way to a perfect 3-0 record in their first 3
games.

The Azzurri started to regain their composure near the end of the
first half and began a calmer, more organized attack in the second
half. The Swiss attempted to protect their lead, but also looked for
the occasional breaks hoping to catch the Italian defense in disarray
as they did in the first half.  As the Italians played at their best
late in the second half, Baggio narrowed the gap on a shot taken 20
meters outside the box.  Right before the final whistle Eranio snapped
up a poorly cleared ball and promptly put the ball in the net, giving
Italy the equalizer.

In short, the Italian defense was in pieces; Sacchi will have to do
much work with this after Baresi's retirement. Maldini did not play
due to an "injury" suffered yesterday (I suspect that Maldini elected
not to play because he did not want to play libero, a position that he
does not play and does not feel comfortable playing). The Italian
attack looked quite impotent at the start, but picked up the tempo in
the second half, even if they still looked slow and confused.  Lentini
perhaps was the most consistent of the Italian forwards. Evani, was
substituted for Bianchi in the first half, after the Milanista
suffered a twisted ankle. Lanna was not very impressive, but then
again, the defense was sad overall. I was surprised that Sacchi left
Zola out of the game completely. Seeing on how tight the Swiss defense
was, I would have thought that a player like Zola would be more
effective than Eranio, even if the latter scored the equalizer, but I
digress.

The Azzurri did well to take a point from this game. Based on their
performance in the second half, perhaps this point is almost deserved,
but they still have much work to do -- no one doubts this after
today's game.

In the other Group 1 match played today, Scotland and Portugal played
to a 0-0 draw.

Marco...
--
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- Marco Petroni - VE2VTN - 				   "Forza Azzurri!"
	-- McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines (McRCIM), 
                         McGill University, Montreal, Canada.  
 INTERNET/BITNET: marco@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu  or marco@mcrcim.mcgill.ca
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