Christian Vieri scored an early goal against Chile which knocked more stuffing out of Italy than the South Americans, who bounced back to take a 2-1 lead before it finished all square.

And the psycho-drama repeated itself here on Wednesday night, when Luigi Di Biagio scored in the eighth minute and Cameroon had a man spent off, only for Italy to be completely dominated until the last 15 minutes.

Maldini admitted: "At one stage, I thought it was going to be the same as against Chile... we have to improve, but I think that above all else, we have a psychological block. We have got to show more character, which frankly, on many occasions left a lot to be desired... at one point I thought wewere even going to concede a goal that would have changed everything.

"We didn't, and we can continue on our World Cup adventure, but I certainly don't consider ourselves to have qualified for the second round yet.

He went on: "We've got a tendency to sit back in our own half and wait for the ball after we take the lead. With one more player more than Cameroon, we should have controlled the ball more. But we didn't get into a rhythm.

His son and team captain Paolo said: "We've got to get things straighter in ourheads," while Roberto Baggio added: "We must improve our possession of the ball and we've got to be calmer about things."

The closest spectator to the action on Wednesday night was goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca, who had little else to do but watch as Italy let the match slip from their grasp. "It went well in the end," said the Inter Milan star. "But there was this same psychological block again. Once we had taken the lead, we went on the defensive instead of attacking." For the problem forItaly is not what they do with their feet, but what they do with their heads.

Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.