Lippi salutes Juve spirit

Coach Marcello Lippi laughed off Juventus FC's disastrous start to their opening UEFA Champions League Group D against RC Deportivo La Coruña, as his side recovered from going two goals behind in the first eleven minutes to earn a 2-2 draw in Spain.

Late arrival
Diego Tristán and Roy Makaay both scored from Joan Capdevila crosses as Deportivo threatened to overwhelm their visitors in the early stages, but Lippi made light of Juventus's poor start, saying: "Unfortunately I could not find the way to the ground and arrived 20 minutes late. That was when we started to play great football."

Juventus recovery
Juventus bounced back from their two early blows and delivered a terrific performance either side of half-time to equalise through goals from Alessandro Birindelli and Pavel Nedved, and Lippi believed that they could have won the game.

Disallowed goal
Indeed, the coach was quick to point out a 14th-minute incident in which a misplaced header from Deportivo defender Aldo Duscher was forced into Juanmi García's goal as evidence of his case.

'The better team'
"After the match I think we could have won and we even scored a third goal," he said referring to the effort which was disallowed for offside. "Apart from the first 15 minutes we were the better team."

Tide turns
Certainly, Deportivo coach Javier Irureta had good reason to be disappointed by the way in which the Italian side overcame a catastrophic opening spell where the home team tore into them.

Deserved draw
Irureta's side had tormented Juventus down the wings, and looked as if they could score at will after Tristán broke the deadlock in the ninth minute, but the visitors regained their composure and Irureta was forced to concede that they deserved a share of the points.

'Stronger than us'
"We started very well," he said. "In the first 20 minutes we scored two goals but Juventus were able to recover and controlled the match. Their physical fitness was crucial. Physically, they were stronger than us."

Key substitutions
Indeed, after Nedved had scored Juventus's equaliser, it looked like they would go on to win the game before a succession of second-half substitutions turned the tide back in the home side's favour.

Near miss
The two goalscorers were replaced by Alberto Luque and Víctor Sánchez and the two nearly combined to produce a winning goal nine minutes from time but Luque's turn and shot was smothered by Gianluigi Buffon in the Juventus goal.

So close
"We made the changes because the players were tired, not because they were playing badly," he said. "The crowd would have chopped my head off if I had made the substitutions when we were 2-0 up. We recovered and could have scored a winner but Alberto Luque and Sergio missed their chances."