Jonathan Wilson / Jonathan Wilson / 23 June 2009 / Leave a comment

A lazy day sees Jonathan Wilson watch the great and the good drift by while pondering the demise of the ageing World Champions. But, as the Azzuri move out to [14.5], is it too early to write them off for World Cup glory in 2010?

There is no doubting where the emotional heart of the Confederations Cup is: Nelson Mandela Square. To describe it as being the centrepiece of a vast shopping mall is accurate, but perhaps gives the wrong impression. The Sandton City mall dominates Sandton, the business district of Johannesburg. In many ways it's terribly antiseptic, but it is safe, and that counts for a lot in Johannesburg.

And the square itself, modelled on an Italian piazza, is actually quite pleasant. The huge statue of Mandela stands at one end, there are fountains down the middle, and along the long sides are cafes and restaurants. It's an obvious meeting place, and with the local Fifa headquarters just round the corner and a major hotel a few metres away in the mall, it's a great place for a journalist to sit and watch dignitaries drift by.

Today, Bora Milutinovic was hopping from café to café, followed by an ever-changing retinue of journalists and other hangers-on, holding court, smiling, and generally advertising his availability for a World Cup job now that his contract with Iraq had come to an end. Jonathan Pearce was wandering around with a tanned Gary Mabbutt, while Spanish and Egyptian TV crews did pieces to camera in front of the Mandela statue.

Earlier in the day, Danny Jordaan, the urbane CEO of the World Cup organising committee, was hobbling about between the dozens of interviews he does a day, while Sepp Blatter crossed the square heading back from an early-morning media briefing. Fifa officials, obvious in their navy blazers, dotted the tables, gabbling into phones in a multitude of languages. Later on, the appearance of several members of the Brazilian squad in the mall caused a mini stampede. Come the World Cup, you imagine, seats in the cafes will become highly prized. And there is even the dreaded possibility that if fans take up residence en masse that TV crews will be squabbling to set up cameras at the opposite end to the statue to catch the best views of chairs being hurled.

After another late night last night following the drive back from Pretoria, and with no games until Wednesday, it was a largely lazy day, floating around the square, chatting to the great and good. Not surprisingly, the main topic of conversation was Italy's collapse the previous night - and the possibility that as a team they might be shot.

Failing to reach the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup is far from the greatest crime, but it was the manner of Italy's exit that will ring alarm bells. For all but 25 minutes against USA, when they overturned a 1-0 deficit to win 3-1 against 10 men, they were poor, beaten by Egypt and utterly outplayed by Brazil. Given the sluggishness of their play, the lack of pace or bite, it's hardly surprising that their age has come under scrutiny.

Six of the side that started against Brazil are over 30, but it's not entirely clear what else Marcello Lippi, the Italy coach, can do. Davide Santon, the Internazionale full-back who suffered a thigh injury that kept him out for the tournament, and the forward Giuseppe Rossi of Villarreal offer some hope for the future, but Serie A is not awash with young talent.

"I don't see many young players around who could have made a difference," said goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. "Maybe that's because our league has become less competitive. All we can hope is that our young players make a leap in quality in the coming months, but you need character and experience to be successful at international level."
Internazionale have won four straight Serie A titles and are [1.94] to stretch that run to five next season.

Lippi will have to do something, though, to re-energise the team. The fact that Italy habitually struggle between World Cups should perhaps caution us against writing them off entirely, but this is a side is desperate need of re-energisation. They are [14.5] to win the tournament, and it should be remembered that nobody fancied them before the 2006 World Cup, but at the moment they have the look of France in 2002 when they mounted an anaemic defence of their crown, going out in the group stage after failing to score a goal.