Italy’s Andrea Pirlo cools off during the match against Costa Rica at the Pernambuco Arena in Recife.

Italy coach Cesare Prandelli refused to blame the midday tropical heat for his side’s shock 1-0 World Cup defeat by Costa Rica on Friday.

Prandelli said there was no point in being negative after the loss which left his side needing at least a draw against Uruguay in their final game to qualify from Group D.

“Right now I don’t think we need to be negative, we need to think about recovering our energies because we have another game in a few days’ time, we play against Uruguay and whether we qualify depends on that,” Prandelli told reporters.

“It’s useless to blame the heat,” he added.

“We have to regain not just the physical energy but the mental energy as well.”

Italy’s first match was in Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon rain forest, and they will face Uruguay in a 13.00 kick-off on Tuesday in Natal, another tropical venue.

“We know about the calendar, we’ve known it for some time,” said Prandelli.

“It’s useless to try and find excuses... we have to be ready at the kick-off.”

Prandelli refused to blame Italy’s tactics for the defeat.

“We didn’t get our tactics wrong,” he said.

“They were very aggressive and we were trying to find different ways into the game but we didn’t manage it. Mario (Balotelli) had two opportunities and if we had scored the game would have been different.

“All we needed was an opportunity, maybe we should have believed in it more. We conceded the goal and that was the end of it. We were unable to come back, congratulations to Costa Rica.”

Italy’s defeat meant that England were eliminated.

“I’m terribly sorry, not just for the English, but also for us,” said Prandelli.

“We also wanted to win. I have no message for the English.”

Costa Rica’s plan to stifle Italy playmaker Andrea Pirlo worked perfectly as the Ticos took another major scalp at the Pernambuco Arena to top the group on six points.

“The idea was to stop him from playing forward, from feeding Balotelli, from feeding the strikers, and it paid out,” midfielder Celso Borges told Reuters.

Every time Pirlo got the ball, somebody had to break the line to make sure he didn’t play it forward

Costa Rica coach Jorge Luis Pinto told reporters before the game he had a plan to stop Pirlo and the 26-year-old Borges and his fellow midfielders implemented it perfectly.

“We were working him in zones,” said Borges.

“Every time Pirlo got the ball, somebody had to break the line to make sure he didn’t play it forward.

“He was tough in the first half, playing one-touch (passes) and then he dropped back a little.”

The Costa Rican tactics worked a charm as Pirlo was prevented from firing his trademark passes around the field as he had done in the 2-1 win over England in their opening game.

The Italians will have to struggle to advance while Costa Rica have already booked a place in the knockout stages.

Last time the Ticos did that was in 1990 when a team containing Borges’s father lost 4-1 to Czechoslovakia in the last 16.