“You just have to look at the clubs they are coming from.”

With Duffy left to kick his heels in frustration on the substitutes' bench, the youngest player on the pitch was Italy’s 18-year-old full-back Davide Santon, who took all of the plaudits after his third flawless debut this season.

He broke into the Inter side without any sign of nerves, making his bow against Roma, he picked up his first Under-21 cap with equal aplomb while his international debut on Saturday night could not be faulted either.

“It is only logical that players like him, when they have such a level of maturity, make the step-up to the national team so early,” commented Lippi, who has included Santon in his squad for the Confederations Cup.

There, Santon could play alongside one of his childhood heroes, Fabio Cannavaro, in the defence.

“I am really looking forward to meeting him and hope we can become good friends,” said Santon.

“I have befriended two World Cup heroes in (Fabio) Grosso and (Gennaro) Gattuso, but Cannavaro is the ultimate for me.

“Cannavaro is a hero of mine.”

Lippi, meanwhile, believes the best football in the world can be seen in Italy, even if the domestic Serie A league has come in for criticism in recent times.

No Italian club made it beyond the quarter-finals of either the Champions League or the UEFA Cup last season, prompting many of the league’s coaches, including Inter Milan’s Jose Mourinho, to raise questions about their competitiveness abroad.

AC Milan general manager Adriano Galliani recently claimed Serie A “runs the risk of becoming a small league”, but Italy coach Lippi believes the league is not a true indication of the strength of Italian football.

But Lippi countered that view, by saying: “Club football is not the expression of a country’s football.”

He added: “The big teams in England, Italy and Spain have dozens of foreigners and they cannot be considered as representative of English, Italian or Spanish football.”