Italy scrape through

[Donegalcelt]

A nothing game with a somewhat weakened side but a scrape for Lippi's boys v the All Whites

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=266772&&cc=5739

[irishultra]

crazy game alright lol

[superfrank]

A nothing game with a somewhat weakened side but...

I stopped reading after that.

[tricky_colour]

I think there was only one player who turned out against us.

[Donegalcelt]

I think there was only one player who turned out against us.

Zambrotta, Dossena, Pirlo, Iaquinta, Quagliarella, Palombo and Cassano's mate Pepe all played (bits) of both games, although it's still a nothing game

Italy must hate the big man up front, as Folan showed. Killen is a dreadful player and he scored a header and a pen

[Joseph McSweene]

I think there was only one player who turned out against us.

To be fair-its still a fairly strong team....Gilardino, Rossi, Rino, Legrottaglie, Amelia, Santon, Quagliarella, etc are top-quality players (plus the bench had people like Pirlo, Cannavaro, Zambrotta, Grosso, Chiellini, toni, etc). Though the team only contained one player that started against us-there was 6 of the team that started against us on the bench-and 6 of the bench in the Ireland game started against New Zeland....

As always with the Italians though, why read too much into these results. They always (always) do just enough to qualify/get to a final/etc, despite playing unconvincingly.