Italy boss Marcello Lippi refused to reveal whether he would field last season’s Serie A topscorer Antonio Di Natale in the starting lineup against Paraguay in their World Cup 2010 finals Group F opener, and snapped at journalists during the pre-game press conference.

Lippi has so far preferred a front trio of Alberto Gilardino, Simone Pepe and Vicenzo Iaquinta despite all three players failing to come anywhere near the 29 goals that Di Natale scored with Udinese last season.

However, the Italian has obviously grown weary of the constant criticism over his selections and told journalists to give up on their jobs if they could not second guess him successfully.

“If you don’t understand the line-up you should change your trade and give up being journalists. If you don’t understand the kind of line-up I am using, you better change jobs. Come on, what excuse do you have? But I’m not going to tell you, anyway,” Lippi berated.

“Let me say once again that I haven’t even told the players. If I tell you today, that is not fair. We’ll see if you got it right.”

The Italy boss had to, once again, fend off the media negativity that has surrounded the team’s preparations and insisted that the world champions are ready to defend their title well.

“I can tell you there is a great will to do well in the tournament,” Lippi said. “The scepticism I respect, although I don’t agree with it because it comes from just two friendly matches. It’s part of a programme we had and that we knew would lead us here. They were not crucial.

“I don’t know what the scepticism is due to. I won’t deny that injury prevented me doing certain experiments, but I assure you the team are ready to play a great match. There are no doubts about our preparation.”

Tags: Antonio Di Natale, Italy, Marcello Lippi, Paraguay, World Cup, World Cup 2010