Road looking clear for world champions

Reigning World Cup holders Italy will be expecting plain sailing in South Africa next June after being handed a very favourable draw in Group F.

Given some of the options out there a pairing with New Zealand, Paraguay and debutants Slovakia makes comfortable viewing for a team that has been anything but brilliant since lifting the world crown for a fourth time three years ago.

Slovakia will be making their first ever appearance and New Zealand only their second, their first being back in 1982 when they lost all three matches.

The toughest prospect will undoubtedly be Paraguay, who have qualified for the fourth time in a row and eighth time in total but have never been beyond the second round.

But while Italy will be the undoubted favourites to win the group, all three of their opponents will fancy their chances of reaching the next round.

For all three there were much tougher prospects out there and the likelihood is that there will be quite a battle for the runners-up spot in the group.

As for Italy, they come into this with a 100 percent record against their three opponents.

However, that constitutes only four matches in total and little should be read into it.

Their only previous meeting with Slovakia was back in 1998 and a 3-0 win in a home friendly in Catania but Slovakia have come on leaps and bounds since then.

Their brightest prospect is also well know to Italy as Napoli’s attacking midfielder Marek Hamsik has long been attracting the attention of not only the top sides in the country but also allegedly the likes of Manchester United.

Paraguay have been beaten twice by Italy but one of those was back in 1950 at the World Cup in Brazil and the other one also in 1998, a 3-1 friendly victory in Parma.

However, this Paraguay team is another heading in the right direction and led the South American qualifying group from beginning almost to the end when Brazil finally overtook them.

As for New Zealand, Italy have already had their fingers almost burned once by the Antipodeans having had to come back from a goal down three times in a pre-Confederations Cup friendly in Pretoria last June before two Vincenzo Iaquinta goals in the last 22 minutes earned the world champions a narrow 4-3 win.

It may look easy on paper, but as Italy coach Marcello Lippi warned: “The more you think a group will be easy the more difficult it becomes.”