Rocca ready for finals chance

By Paolo Menicucci

Italy coach Francesco Rocca does not believe home advantage will overly benefit his players at the UEFA European Under-17 Championship, but remains confident his side can go all the way in the final tournament.

'No great advantage'
"At this level playing host to the tournament is no great advantage," he told uefa.com. "I think our ambitions are exactly the same as those of the other seven teams taking part: we hope to play well and go as far as possible in the competition."

Lack of sharpness
However, the Azzurrini trainer fears that qualifying automatically as the host nation could actually work against his team, saying: "To be honest, I think that playing at home is a slight handicap because we did not have the chance to play many games while our opponents are here after their respective qualifying campaigns."

World chance
Nevertheless, as well as the incentive to impress on home soil, there is also the opportunity to qualify for the 2005 FIFA U-17 World Championship for the two finalists and the third-placed side. "It is important to qualify for the World Cup but now we are playing the European Championship and that's what we have to focus on," Rocca said. "We want to play well and win the tournament. Qualifying for the World Cup will only be a consequence of our performances here."

Difficult draw
Italy are in Group A alongside England, Turkey and Belarus - and Rocca is aware that reaching the semi-finals will not be easy, saying: "I think our group is the most difficult. Belarus are doing a great job with their youth systems, Turkey eliminated [holders] France [in the Elite round] and England are very strong.

Strong competition
"However, I think all the eight teams involved are very good. The Netherlands overcame sides like the Czech Republic and Germany to qualify, while Croatia knocked out Portugal. All are here with the ambition of winning the tournament. There are many great teams in these finals and we do not distinguish between them. We know we have to win five games if we want to lift the trophy."

Italian hopes
The former AS Roma player was reluctant to single out any of his players for praise before the finals kick off on Tuesday, saying only: "I think observers will be able to decide for themselves the players who will do particularly well in the tournament. I just hope there will be many Italians among them."

Lessons in defeat
The hosts warmed up with friendly defeats by England and Turkey, but Rocca insists his charges have learnt a valuable lesson from those losses and is confident it will be a different story during the finals. "I fully respect the work my players do every day at their clubs but I think we are a bit behind compared to other countries as regards physical preparation," he said. "In Italy, we start to work on the physical part of the game a little later than they do in other countries.

'We are ready'
"The friendly games we played and lost against England and Turkey confirmed my opinion," he added. "However, we have worked very hard since and have prepared in the best possible way to close this gap on the other teams. I think we are ready to play a very good tournament."