World Cup 2010: Italy
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May 21st, 2010
Federazione Italiana Gioco Calcio : Italian Federation of Football.
Main players: Fabio Cannavaro (FIFA Player of the Year 2006), Gianluigi Buffon, Gennaro Gattuso. All three players were champions of the World Cup 2006, which indicates that Italy has an aging team; it looks like the Champion of a World Cup tends to keep most players to the next Cup, something which happened to France in 2002 and Brazil in 2006. The only country which managed to win two consecutive Cups, keeping the same team basis (with older players), was Brazil, winner of 1958 and 1962.
FIFA ranking (April 2010): #5
Italy finished first of their group in the European Qualifying for the World Cup 2010, ahead of Ireland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Montenegro and Georgia.
Italy is in Group F of the World Cup 2010, and will play the first three matches against Paraguay (June 14th), New Zealand (June 20th) and Slovakia (June 24th).
Italy players for World Cup 2010:
Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Morgan De Sanctis (Napoli), Federico Marchetti (Cagliari), Salvatore Sirigu (Palermo).
Defense: Salvatore Bocchetti (Genoa), Leonardo Bonucci (Bari), Fabio Cannavaro (Juventus), Mattia Cassani (Palermo), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Domenico Criscito (Genoa), Fabio Grosso (Juventus), Christian Maggio (Napoli), Gianluca Zambrotta (Milan).
Midfield: Mauro Camoranesi (Juventus), Antonio Candreva (Juventus), Andrea Cossu (Cagliari), Daniele De Rossi (Roma), Gennaro Gattuso (Milan), Claudio Marchisio (Juventus), Riccardo Montolivo (Fiorentina), Angelo Palombo (Sampdoria), Simone Pepe (Udinese), Andrea Pirlo (Milan).
Forward: Marco Borriello (Milan), Antonio Di Natale (Udinese), Alberto Gilardino (Fiorentina), Vincenzo Iaquinta (Juventus), Giampaolo Pazzini (Sampdoria), Fabio Quagliarella (Napoli), Giuseppe Rossi (Villarreal).
Coach: Marcelo Lippi; these words of his: best players don’t always make up the best team could very well have been said by Brazilian coach Dunga.
June 11th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
[...] was third, and fell to fourth, below Argentina; another switch over was Holland passing Germany and Italy (Germans lost Ballack, and betters seemingly didn’t like the Italian roster); the USA Team [...]