Fielding a team of reserves for his first game as Italy coach, former MetroStar Roberto Donadoni saw the Azzurri fall to Croatia, 2-0, in Livorno. Italy’s 25-game unbeaten run came to an end as Croatia got first-half goals from Brazilian-born Eduardo da Silva and Luka Modric.
Goalkeeper Marco Amelia was the only member of Marcello Lippi’s World Cup championship team to play against Croatia, and he was the third-string goalie and didn’t play in Germany. Donadoni gave seven players their first caps in a game the sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport described as “an avoidable embarrassment.”
New Germany coach Joachim Loew and new England coach Steve McClaren had better luck their first games. Germany beat Sweden, 3-0. Like in the second round of the World Cup, Germany put two goals past Sweden in the first eight minutes. Miroslav Klose finished with two goals. England crushed 2004 European champion Greece, 4-0. Peter Crouch scored twice, and Chelsea players Frank Lampard and John Terry also scored.
Other stars in Wednesday’s international friendlies were Ajax striker Klaas Jan Huntelaar, who scored twice in his first game for the Netherlands, which beat Ireland 4-0 in Dublin, and Julien Faubert, whose stoppage-time goal scored minutes after coming on in his international debut gave World Cup runner-up France a 2-1 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Two well-known Dutch coaches had mixed fortunes in their debuts with new teams. Guus Hiddink’s Russia beat Latvia, 1-0, while Leo Beenhakker’s Poland fell, 2-0, to Denmark.