FRANCE 98 – Italy-Austria – C. Maldini: “We've passed the first hurdle”

Italy-Austria – C. Maldini: “We’ve passed the first hurdle”

23.06.98 19h09 CET

Cesare MALDINI (ITALY team coach):

“Let’s start with the bad news concerning Alessandro NESTA (6) who is injured and will undergo an MRI scan in the next 24 hours to determine the extent of the injury. In any case we are sad to report that he will probably not play in the rest of the tournament. We deserved the result. We had a lot of chances and I’m satisfied with the way the team played. We’ve passed the first hurdle. Now we have a few days to rest and think about our next opponent. The two halves were very different. In the first half we were not as involved as we should have been but we had the psychological advantage of our previous wins. The match was more difficult than we had expected. We always kept in mind AUSTRIA’s previous results and they showed this three minutes before the end of the match when they scored”.