Italy pull together in the face of adversity

Italy World Cup camps are never less than volatile environments but none more so than their current hideaway in the pretty western city of Duisburg. From the beginning Marcello Lippi's squad has faced the double jeopardy of trying to live up to its supposed potential while washing away the stains on Calcio's international reputation left by the corruption scandal back home. It was always a tall order.

In the first two weeks the Azzurri camp was a tinderbox in danger of a spark. But all that changed at the training ground on Tuesday lunchtime when the stocky, shaven-headed captain Fabio Cannavaro - perhaps the competition's best defender to date - suddenly abandoned a packed news conference. A besieged official then revealed the first fragments of what he knew of the Juventus team manager Gianluca Pessotto's leap from the roof of the club headquarters in Corso Giulio Ferraris in central Turin.

"It's incredible, I saw him just the other night at the hotel up in Hamburg for the match against Czech Republic," he stuttered, shocked and eyes moistening.

World Cups are lived in a surreal frenetic bubble but the Italian bubble had burst. The hyperbole and fabricated controversy over Francesco Totti, team selections and tactics was replaced by a real human drama of a popular young man fighting for his life. The smiles worn by the players before their daily media tormentors had always been thin and forced. Now they have vanished altogether.

The verbal sparring between Lippi and the press has also gone, with the notoriously abrasive coach adopting a much softer tone in his rare encounters with the media .

Pessotto, 35, is not just a former Azzurro, he is a genuine friend and colleague of several members of the current national squad. Eleven seasons as a Juventus defender until retiring to his new post this summer meant he had played under Lippi at club level.

Juventus team-mates had nicknamed him "the professor" because of his quiet manner and round spectacles. First at the Turin hospital to visit Pessotto was Alessandro Del Piero's wife, Sonia. She and Signora Pessotto are close friends, along with the wives of the defender Gianluca Zambrotta and the assistant coach Ciro Ferrara. The three husbands also flew back to Turin that afternoon and were photographed, ashen-faced, driving away from the hospital that evening as their friend remained in intensive care.

Lippi must surely be wondering just what else can possibly happen to unbalance his side, a team whose attackers are stuttering and whose defence has been depleted by injury and suspension. Yesterday Del Piero showed great composure when stopping to respond to questions of how Pessotto's drama may influence the squad's performance: "No, let's not do the usual rhetoric, mixing things together," he said in calm but measured tones. "These are two separate things. They are part of two different worlds."

Another Juventus man, the goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon referred movingly to his former team-mate's "moment of weakness", adding the heartfelt admission: "It makes it difficult to concentrate on football matches and all the emotions you are supposed to feel at the World Cup."

It was no coincidence that the day after Pessotto's fall it was the reserve goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi of Lazio who faced the media. Solid and dependable as ever, the robust veteran was noticeably less genial than his usual exuberant Roman character. He handled questions with great humanity and patience when deflecting inquires about his club Lazio's possible punitive relegation, repeating the oft-heard plea to "let justice take its course". He said the seriousness of the Pessotto issue showed how all concerned should change the tone surrounding football: "We should all avoid the kind of terminology that we sometimes hear in football, about 'war' and suchlike, and remember it's a game."

Certainly there are increasing signs that the off-the-pitch events swirling around this Italy team do appear, paradoxically, to have welded it together in adversity, as perhaps was evidenced by the tenacity with which they resisted the one-man advantage enjoyed by their second-round Australian opponents following Marco Materazzi's harsh red card.

Alessandro Nesta seemed to have had enough of being on the receiving end when an Argentinian goaded him "about the scandals in Italy", snapping back angrily: "Is everything all right back in your country?"

Yesterday afternoon hospital bulletins reported a worsening in the condition of Pessotto, a father of two. He is not among the indicted individuals in the ongoing investigations by judicial and sports authorities, is not linked to allegations of wrongdoing and may not have anything to do with the investigation at all.