ROME, June 27: Italian media have criticised coach Marcello Lippi after the Azzurri needed a controversial late penalty to edge past Australia 1-0 at the World Cup. Italy clinched a quarter-final place in stoppage time when Fabio Grosso tumbled over Lucas Neill and substitute Francesco Totti scored from the spot with the last kick of the match.

“Totti greater than the coach's mistakes,” said Corriere dello Sport's front page, which hit out at Lippi's decision to start with out-of-form Alessandro Del Piero instead of Totti.

“After two years of intelligent work Lippi tried to tear the dream from us,” said the paper. “Once again Totti demonstrated he knows how to reply to his critics on the pitch.

“In a quarter of an hour he did more than many players manage by running around for 90 minutes.”

La Gazzetta dello Sport also criticised Lippi, calling his decision to replace first-choice strikers Luca Toni and Alberto Gilardino with Vincenzo Iaquinta and defender Andrea Barzagli as “substitutions that seemed to come out of a lucky dip”.

The paper said the team were lucky to beat Australia in the second round match with a “doubtful penalty” and it was almost as though a higher power was at work propelling Italy onwards.

“Penalties have killed off our World Cup hopes many times —in Naples, in Pasadena, in Paris,” said La Gazzetta, recalling previous World Cup exits in 1990, 1994 and 1998.

“Thanks to a last-minute penalty we go forward, towards the semi-finals, on a path that seems marked by Providence.”—Reuters