Romania coach Victor Piturca declared himself "satisfied" with the 1-1 draw against Italy at the Letzigrund on Friday, though he felt the Azzurri were "lucky" to have escaped with a point after Adrian Mutu’s late penalty had been saved by Gianluigi Buffon. His Italian counterpart Roberto Donadoni, felt Italy had had the better of the Group C game and apologised to the tifosi "because we did not get the three points I think we deserved".

penalty-mutu-italia-romania-euro-2008-delfinul Romania holds Italy to 1-1 draw at Euro 2008

Victor Piturca, Romania coach
We didn’t win but this is a good result for the Romanian team. We have played the world champions and the finalists of the last [FIFA] World Cup and we still have a chance.
If we play as well in our next match [against the Netherlands] we can qualify. It was a fair result, and though we should have scored our penalty we should be satisfied with 1-1. Of course you could say Italy were lucky. When you have a penalty against you and the player doesn’t score that is a lucky thing for Italy. I wasn’t surprised we made so many chances. Italy are not at their best and I counted on this.

The fact Mutu missed a penalty is part of the game; it is nothing new. I am more upset by the way they were able to score against us than by the penalty miss. Penalties have been missed, are missed, and always will be missed. I told Mutu to focus and concentrate and kick the ball very hard but maybe he was influenced by the fact that Buffon is one of the greatest goalkeepers in the world. He didn’t miss, it was Buffon who made a great save. We did have some fine moments and passed the ball around well. We had some bad moments too as far as our defence was concerned, but it was a more spectacular game today because both teams needed a win.