THE CHAMPIONS said:
yeah it was real strange that matrix & de rossiplayed & neither toni nor iaquinta played penalties.Amuwau Matrix wasa master of free kicks in perugia as I remember he scored a lot from penalties & free kicks.Anyway Lipii knew better & it seems like he did all the right choices in the END!
Toni? If you see him take penalties for Fiorentina you can understand why Toni isn't considered in Lippi's plans, yet.
Not sure about Iaquinta, but his penalties too doesn't really impressed me while in Udinese.
It is not surprising that Lippi intended to use Materazzi as a penalty taker to let Barthez think where he will hit. I do think Lippi studied his players on how they take penalties. To be honest despite people laughing about Barthez and stuff, he does watch videos of how players take the penalties, and he picked out some of Italy's penalties correctly.
But I think that Lippi's choice of players is to let Barthez figure out who will shoot where. Of course Barthez knows that Pirlo and DP will be picked, since their penalties are unpredictable. About the other 3, they are less known, so Barthez has to guess where will Grosso, De Rossi and Matrix hit. But if it is Lehmann, it will be harder since he is so tall and agile, and Germans never lost in penalties.
One thing that makes me wonder is about Buffon. Does he watch the videos of how each French take their penalties? He got it completely wrong, only to be saved by Trezeguet's crossbar shot. But the good thing is nobody shot like how Ayala does it.