{"id":5475,"date":"2013-06-17T10:13:25","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T10:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=5475"},"modified":"2013-06-17T10:13:25","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T10:13:25","slug":"soccer-italys-coach-critical-of-balotelli-after-win-against-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=5475","title":{"rendered":"Soccer: Italy’s coach critical of Balotelli after win against Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andrea<\/a>
Andrea Pirlo celebrates scoring the opening goal for Italy against Mexico yesterday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Italy coach Cesare Prandelli tore a strip off tearaway striker Mario Balotelli despite the controversial star grabbing the winner in the 2-1 Confederations Cup victory over Mexico at the Maracana.<\/p>\n

Balotelli sealed the win 12 minutes from time with a fine, muscular finish, but Prandelli was furious after the Milan striker was booked for stripping off his shirt in celebration.<\/p>\n

“Mario needs to stop taking his shirt off after scoring a goal. Picking up silly bookings is not a good idea in a tournament as difficult as this one,” said Prandelli, having already castigated Balotelli for his sending off in the recent World Cup qualifier against the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n

But as regards the performance, sparked by a sumptuous opening free-kick goal from evergreen cap centurion Andrea Pirlo, Prandelli pronounced himself satisfied with the Italians having shrugged off a limp warm-up draw against Haiti.<\/p>\n

“It was a very tactical match but we dominated it for the most part. Mexico were trying to get into it on the counter-attack when we made mistakes. But we stopped them from finding their game and dictating the place. That’s what we tried to do and we managed it,” said Prandelli.<\/p>\n

“Mexico came up against a very solid Italian team.”<\/p>\n

Italy now head for Recife in the north to meet a Japan side beaten by Brazil in their opening game and coached by fellow Italian Alberto Zaccheroni as they look to keep pace with the Brazilians before their final pool showdown.<\/p>\n

“He (Zaccheroni) knows us well and how we do things,” said Prandelli. “I know Alberto and we will have to be alert to anything. We are already concentrating on that next match.”<\/p>\n

Mexico coach Jose Manuel de la Torre said Italy had to thank their “individual” moments of brilliance for their win.<\/p>\n

“That was what made the difference,” said de la Torre in noting the majestic showing and free-kick finish of Pirlo.<\/p>\n

“We came up against a very well-organised team with very good players, but it was their individual brilliance which proved the difference between us.<\/p>\n

“We have a few things we need to work on and now we will focus on the next match against Brazil,” in Fortaleza, de la Torre concluded. – AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italy coach Cesare Prandelli tore a strip off tearaway striker Mario Balotelli despite the controversial star grabbing the winner in the 2-1 Confederations Cup victory over Mexico at the Maracana. Balotelli sealed the win 12 minutes from time with a fine, muscular finish, but Prandelli was furious after the Milan striker was booked for stripping … Continue reading “Soccer: Italy’s coach critical of Balotelli after win against Mexico”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,700],"tags":[3193,3189,3190,2556,3188,3192,476,3191],"class_list":["post-5475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sport-news","tag-andrea-pirlo","tag-balotelli","tag-cesare-prandelli","tag-italy","tag-mexico","tag-shirt","tag-soccer","tag-win"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Andrea_Pirlo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5475"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5478,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5475\/revisions\/5478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}