Japan may be the home of hi-tech entertainment but Italy's World Cup squad have turned their back on video games, preferring to read books about spirituality.
All 23 of Giovanni Trapattoni's squad have been provided with "Playstation" gaming consoles in their rooms but so far none of them have owned up to using them.
"I don't care for Playstation," striker Vincenzo Montella said on Friday, "I am reading books instead -- at the moment I am reading one by Paolo Coelho," he added.
Brazilian Coelho, a novelist who addresses spiritual issues in his 'new age' fiction, features in a library of 200 books provided to the team by an Italian bookshop chain, that appears to be more popular with the players than playing video games.
Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has brought his own mini-library and is working his way through a 3,000-page volume while bearded Roma midfielder Damiano Tommasi, regarded as the 'intellectual' of the side, also said he was a bookworm rather than a video game addict.
|