Italy 1 Greece 1, as Lippi Breaks record

November 21, 2008

The Azzurri visited Greece midweek for a quick international friendly, giving Italian coach Marcello Lippi a chance to break a very famous coaching record.

A largely dull affair in truth, the only goals of the game came two minutes apart. In the 50th minute, Greek player Fanis Gekas opened the scoring for the home side, but it took the Italians only four minutes to equalize through the efforts of forward Luca Toni.

Some newer faces that had some time on the pitch were Morgan de Sanctis, filling in for the injured Gianluigi Buffon; Simone Pepe, Riccardo Montolivo, Alessandro Gamberini, Cristian Maggio, Giuseppe Rossi, and Nicola Legrottaglie, also featured.

The significant news of the game was the 1-1 final took Marcello Lippi to 31 games unbeaten as coach of Italy, surpassing the record set by Italian coach “Il Vecchio Maestro” Vittorio Pozzo. Lippi’s new record is a combination of his games as coach leading up to his 2006 World Cup win, and his games as coach since re-taking the position from Roberto Donadoni in July following Euro 2008.

Justin Barrie

Writers Note: Apologies, fans; it was my understanding Italy had no more friendly fixtures in 2008 and it was previously reported the Azzurri were done for the year.

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