On The Road To South Africa – The Journey So Far

  Italy’s qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa has to date been a successful and straightforward one. Drawn in the relatively weak Group Eight, with the Republic of Ireland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Montenegro and Georgia, the Azzurri are unbeaten to date, having won four and drawn two of their six matches, currently topping the table on fourteen points, two clear of their nearest rivals Ireland.

	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Italy	6	4	2	0	9	3	+6	14
Republic of Ireland	6	3	3	0	7	4	+3	12
Bulgaria	5	1	4	0	5	3	+2	7
Cyprus	5	1	1	3	4	7	?3	4
Montenegro	5	0	3	2	3	6	?3	3
Georgia	7	0	3	4	4	9	?5	3

  The campaign began for the Italian side last September, with a trip to play Cyprus in Larnaca. Italy went into the game as huge favourites, but made heavy work of beating the minnows, relying on Udinese striker Antonio Di Natale’s injury time strike, his second of the game, to scrape through 2-1, Efstathios Aloneftis having equalised for the Cypriots.

  Marcello Lippi’s side were back on the right track four days later though, as they comfortably, if understatedly defeated Georgia 2-0 at the Stadio Friuli in Udine, a goal in each half from Roma’s Daniele De Rossi earning the points, Georgia’s spirited resistance ultimately proving futile.

De Rossi’s brace gave the Azzurri a second straight win

  The 100% record was lost a month later in Sofia, however, as the Italians and Bulgaria played out a dour goalless draw, with many of the Italy players becoming frustrated towards the end of the match at their inability to find a way past a team that they would hope and expect to beat. The perfect antidote to this disappointment came the following Wednesday though, with a 2-1 win coming over Montenegro in Lecce in southern Italy. It seems that scoring twice in a match is the order of the day with the Italian players, as it was Alberto Aquilani, De Rossi’s Roma colleaguewho this time achieved the feat, his goals coming either side of a goal from another Roma player, Mirko Vu?ini?, who was well acquainted with the Stadio Via del Mare, where the game was played, having spent five years with Lecce, before moving to the capital.

 
Aquilani and Vu?ini? are Roma teammates, but were opponents when their two nations met in October

  A quirk of the fixture list meant that the Azzurri’s next qualifying game was also against the Montenegrans, though it came five months after the previous meeting, in March of this year. Italy emerged easy winners from Podgorica, one of the best known players in the squad, AC Milan’s Andrea Pirlo, and one of considerably less renown, Fiorentina’s Gianpaolo Pazzinni, netting to give Italy a 2-0 win, in a match refereed by England’s Martin Atkinson. Having won four of their first five matches, Italy were firmly on top of the Group Eight table.

  A stutter came next though, as former Italy manager Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland side came to play at the Stadio San Nicola in Bari. Tottenham striker Robbie Keane’s eighty-eighth minute goal cancelled out Juventus forward’s Vincenxo Iaquinta’s early strike, meaning the spoils were shared, keeping the Irish hot on the tail of Italy in second place.

A former manager of Italy, it is clear where Trapattoni’s priorities now lie

  A victory against Ireland would have put Italy well clear at the top of the group. As it was, Ireland are still withing touching distance. The Azzurri have not failed to qualify for a World Cup since 1958, and despite the setback against the Irish, they still look right on track to maintain their good recent record. One of the world’s proudest footballing nations, Italy has become part of the furniture at the World Cup Finals, and I’d be very surprised if we do not see them flying the Bandiera D’Italia in South Africa in a year’s time.