Monday, June 23 2008 --

In the wake of Italy's 4-2 defeat on penalties in the quarter-final of Euro 2008 on Sunday night, there has been loads of knee-jerking changes waiting to come on air. One of them is of course the sacking of the Italian national team coach Roberto Donadoni but there might as well be a change or two in the personnel.

Italian international striker Alessandro del Piero has have had a quiet Euro 2008 campaign although most of that owes to the fact that he was rarely used by Donadoni. The Juventus striker has now come out and hinted that he might just be persuaded by the current circumstances to retire from international football.

Del Piero was the top scorer for Juventus in last season's Italian Serie A and was supposedly on fire until the Euro 2008 finals. Even at 33 years of age, he possesses the same old talent but he now appears to hold a reservation or two about his current status as an Italian international footballer.

This is what the eternal Golden Boy of Italian football had to offer after the match:

"There is a long road before the World Cup. I have the same desire to play for the Nazionale, but we'll have to see what happens over the next two seasons."

Del Piero then appears to be unsure of whether he shall stick around for the Azzurri until the 2010 South African World Cup. Now should he indeed decide to call it quits, how big a loss would that be for Italian football?