The Italian is now joint top-scorer with Chile's Marcelo Salas. Di Biagio had opened the scoring with a glancing header after eight minutes, the highlight of a superb individual World Cup debut in only his fifth appearance for the Azzurri.

``Di Biagio was excellent but I wouldn't want to single him out as the best player on the pitch,'' said Italy coach Cesare Maldini, whose players were heavily criticised for their lacklustre showing in their 2-2 draw with Chile last week.

``All the players have suffered together and they all deserved their victory together.'' Cameroon, who played the whole of thesecond half with 10 men after defender Raymond Kalla was sent off for a brutal late tackle on Di Biagio, were a shadow of the side who were unlucky to only draw 1-1 with Austria in their opening match.

They were ragged and disjointed in the first half and only after the interval did they truly threaten Gianluca Pagliuca's goal. ``We got a bad start tonight and once we were down to 10 men it was an uphill struggle,'' coach Claude Le Roy said. ``The third goal really hurt. I'd like to see it again as I'm not sure there wasn't a foul by Vieri.'' But he declared: ``We're not done with yet.''

Cameroon gave a late substitution to 17-year-old Samuel Eto'O, making him the youngest player to appear at these finals. Italy's victory took them two points clear in the group after the first three games ended in draws.

A single point from their final group match against Austria will see the Italians through to the second round although they will want to finish top to avoid a last-16 clash with Brazil.

Their win wasalso a tribute to Maldini's decision to shuffle his side following the Chile match, throwing on Di Biagio in place of Roberto Di Matteo and inserting Inter Milan's Francisco Moriero on the right flank.Di Biagio in particular was outstanding and clearly enjoyed his first international goal.

Roberto Baggio took a short corner from the left, Lazio defender Alessandro Nesta knocked it back to him and Baggio swung in a curling, dipping cross.Di Biagio, the shaven-headed as Roma mid-fielder, ghosted away from his marker towards the near post and headed the ball across goalkeeper Jacques Songo'O and into the bottom corner of the Cameroon net.

The only slight disappointment for the Italians was the World Cup debut of Alessandro Del Piero. The Juventus striker, recently recovered from an injury, came on as substitute but made little impact.

Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.