ITALY-USA: Coaches' Quotes

17 June 2006

Bruce ARENA (USA)
The team were fantastic tonight, playing with nine men against ten. It's the first time in my career that I've had two players sent off in one match. I don't want to talk about the red cards as I need to see the replays. (Kasey) Keller was our hero tonight, he made some outstanding saves.

Bobby Convey also had an excellent game. We've made a lot of progress since the match the other day (against the Czech Republic). After tonight I know I've got a fantastic bunch of players.

Marcello LIPPI (ITA)
We struggled tonight. We were off-colour and didn't play nearly as well as we did against Ghana the other night. I suspect we hadn't fully recovered. I had an inkling that might be the case and unfortunately my worst fears were confirmed. As so often happens, our mentality was different going into the game. We were nervous and it showed in our performance.

We made mistakes and didn't keep the ball. The equaliser that deflected off (Christian) Zaccardo was bad luck, but we weren't good enough to take advantage of the two sendings-off. Am I angry with (Daniele) De Rossi? He made a serious mistake, but that's something we'll deal with in-house. I don't want to discuss it in public. He will be suspended and we’ll pay the price. There's still everything to play for in Group E.