Strikers Hope Friendship Will Lead Italy to Euro 2000
Copyright � 1999 Nando Media
Copyright � 1999 Agence France-Presse
MILAN, Italy (September 1, 1999 9:25 a.m. EDT http://www.sportserver.com) - Juventus striker Filippo Inzaghi thinks the pairing of himself with best friend Christian Vieri will help Italy qualify for the finals of Euro 2000 next week.
The two will start in Wednesday's Group 1 qualifier against Denmark. Inzaghi's club teammate Alessandro Del Piero has yet to recover full match fitness after a nine-month lay-off due to surgery.
A victory over Denmark in Naples -- where Italy secured its place at the 1998 World Cup finals by beating Russia -- will book its ticket to the finals in Holland and Belgium.
Inzaghi said: "The matches we played together in the national team at the end of last season went very well. I hope we can play together again, because we're both on form at the moment and we both want to do well.
"We're good friends and as footballers we've grown up together; the Serie B, the Under-21 squad, the Serie A via Atalanta and Juventus, and then the national team; always first one and then the other.
"We're very compatible. What counts on the pitch is the willingness to help each other out and to make sacrifices. And that's where friendship is important."
That friendship also counts off the pitch, Inzaghi said, especially given the pressure-cooker atmosphere in which Italian players now live.
"It's also a form of self-defence, we use it to protect each other from the outside world, from the curiousity of the public and from the pressure of the media," he said.
"It's one reason why we phone each other often. I called him after our match against Reggina and complimented him on scoring a hat-trick. But he was mainly happy for my goal."
However good the friendship is, though, Inzaghi acknowledged that professional rivalry has to come in somewhere.
The Juventus striker predicted that both men would win trophies this season, albeit on very different scales.
"I keep telling him," he told the Italian press. "I'll let you win the
goalscorers title and I'll win the league championship."
