Italy captain Giorgio Chiellini blamed "15 minutes of complete madness" for his side's 2-2 draw against England in a match he feels they "dominated".
The Juventus left-back scored Italy's opener on 35 minutes, deflecting home a corner from close range - "like pinball" - after Pierluigi Casiraghi's team had conceded two strikes in three minutes to England's David Nugent and Leroy Lita. "If you see the chances and look at the statistics, aside from those 15 minutes of complete madness, we clearly dominated," he said. "We had over 30 shots on goal. We created so much in attack."Of the Azzurrini's awful beginning at the Gelredome, the 22-year-old added: "We had hoped to start the game better. We had ten or 15 minutes of total amnesia in which none of us were on the field. After that initial blackout, in which we jeapordised the result of the game, we hit back. After England's second goal we were a completely different side - the exact opposite of the one on the pitch until then."
And once they had the bit between their teeth, Chiellini believes his team-mates were unstoppable. "Yesterday was the best we have played since Pierluigi Casiraghi took charge nine months ago." They could easily have won, although the defender insists "we can't blame our forwards, they created so many chances".
Italy must now beat the Czech Republic in their third fixture on Sunday and hope Group B winners Serbia deny England victory in order to reach the semi-finals.
"Unfortunately we didn't manage to find a winning goal and now we're hoping that Serbia draw against England in the last game," said Chiellini. "We have to win our last one and then see what happens in the other match. It is not over yet, and you can be sure that we'll give everything we have until the very end."
[U21 Euro 2007 Championship Finals Schedule]
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