By IANS/AKI,
Rome : The Italian national football team’s homecoming was peppered with jeers and insults when they landed at the Rome airport after being eliminated from the World Cup in their worst performance in 36 years.
“Shame, shame,” screamed some of the two-dozen people who greeted the Azzurri at Rome’s Fiumicino Saturday after they disembarked from the Alitalia plane that flew them home from South Africa where they suffered a first-round World Cup elimination — the four-time champions’ first since 1974 when they were sent home early from West Germany.
Forward Giampaolo Pazzini, the only player to comment, said it was time to move on.
“We want to go straight away in vacation and put this horrible experience behind us,” he said.
The Azzurri Thursday crashed out of the World Cup in a shock 2-3 defeat to Slovakia. Italy’s coach Marcello Lippi announced after the match in the South African city of Johannesburg that he would take a break from football for several months.
The team finished bottom of their group for the first time ever following 1-1 draws with Paraguay and New Zealand before Thursday’s 2-3 defeat to Slovakia.