24 June,2009 08:53 AM IST | | Agencies
Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro has threatened to turn his back on the Azzurri following the storm of criticism which has struck his side, website Goal.com reported.
La Nazionale returned home from South Africa this morning and a number of questions are hanging over the future of the squad following the Confederations Cup blow. Critics have not been kind to the team and failure has been put down to the ageing squad.
Cannavaro is not happy, and he is ready to make way for younger players by giving up his own place.
"Enough with all the talk about old players. If I am a problem, then I will give up my place, but it's down to (coach Marcello) Lippi to decide. I am not here just because I lifted up the World Cup," Cannavaro told Il Corriere Dello Sport.
"We have to reconstruct Italian football. Not just the team, but everything."
Lippi has been criticised at home for persisting with his "old men" rather than handing a chance to the plethora of young talent he has on hand, but he defended his tactics.
"You speak so much about young people what young people," said the 61-year-old, back in charge since Roberto Donadoni's departure after Euro 2008.
"You don't throw youngesters into these matches, you have to put them in gradually. We have youngsters but they need to mature. The best players in Italy you have seen right here on the pitch."
Places up for grabs
Media reports suggest several players in their 30s risk losing their places in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, for which Italy have still to qualify, with defenders Gianluca Zambrotta and Fabio Grosso, and striker Luca Toni among the names cited. But Cannavaro, for one, isn't worried.
"I'm not just here because I happen to have lifted the World Cup trophy (in 2006)," said Cannavaro, who has recently signed for Juventus from Real Madrid.
"Everyone remembers the seven matches we played at the World Cup, and, compared to those, apparently I'm still playing badly.
"But like Lippi, I think that the players who are in the team are the best players that Italy can offer right now."
