Graphic: the showdown in South Africa
How much does the Confederations Cup resemble the real thing, a World Cup? For Marcello Lippi, head coach of Italy, the answer he wants would be: quite substantially. The response many Italians who look at their national starting XI fear is: a little too much.
The reigning world champions have arrived in South Africa for the two-week tournament, which brings together the host nation and the champions of each continent and of the world, looking similar to the Azzurri who conquered France in Berlin in July 2006 to lift the World Cup. Italy have the same head coach, Lippi, who returned to the job last August. They have the same captain, Fabio Cannavaro, who has just returned to Juventus, the club he left in the summer of 2006. They have a dozen of the same footballers. And all these déjà vus add up: many of Lippi's regime are the wrong side of 30, a reflection of the Serie A in which they play.
Italy warmed up for the Confederations Cup with a friendly on Wednesday in Pretoria against New Zealand, champions of the Oceania confederation. The Azzurri fell behind after 13 minutes, again after 42 minutes and again on 57, before rallying through the substitute striker Vicenzo Iaquinta to win 4-3.
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The first half began with some youth, some experimentation by Lippi, and the footballers of North and South Island suddenly had the impression they commanded their sport like the All Blacks do theirs. Only when Gennaro Gattuso, Andrea Pirlo, Gianluca Zambrotta, Mauro Camoranesi, Luca Toni and Iaquinta were restored to the team did Italy manage to impose hierarchy on the New Zealanders. While a friendly is only a friendly, the first hour was far from edifying for Lippi.
The team suffered some criticism at home as well as some sympathy. "When Italy play official, competitive games, you can rely on certain things," said Arrigo Sacchi, a former national head coach, "and they are concentration, motivation, strength, willpower. When they don't, they are seldom successful. Lippi is trying to change this attitude but in a nation like Italy it's hard because there football is a fact of life and not something aesthetic. Winning is the only important thing. When they play friendlies, they find it hard to summon up the right tension for it."
Sacchi sees an Italy team set in their ways, "a defensive side, set up to play on the counterattack".
Still, those methods worked well three summers ago. If Lippi would like to have seen further evidence that younger footballers such as Davide Santon, Simone Pepe and Riccardo Montolivo can take up the baton, he maintains a faith in the 35-year-old Cannavaro, 31-year-old Gattuso, who has been injured for six months, and Pirlo.
The coach believes in the strength and camaraderie of his champions and resisted public enthusiasm for the inclusion in his squad of an individual who might be liable to disrupt that spirit, Antonio Cassano, the maverick striker from Sampdoria. Lippi is left with an attack made up of Toni, tall and strong, Fiorentina's Alberto Gilardino, who at Fiorentina has recovered some of the confidence he lost in his period at Milan, and Giuseppe Rossi, let go by Manchester United but a regular goalscorer with Villarreal.
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Italy begin their tournament tomorrow evening in Pretoria against the United States, champions of the Concacaf region - North and Central America - a fixture with some resonance for the world champions. In Germany three summers ago, the meeting of the two nations featured three red cards, one of them, unsurprisingly, for Daniele de Rossi.
Brazil and Egypt are in the same group, the Brazilians fresh from climbing to the summit of South American qualifying for the next World Cup, and apparently thick-skinned against the grumbles that the football they are playing under Dunga disrespects their tradition of fluency and enterprise.
Brazil beat Italy last time they met, in London last winter, but because it was only a friendly, the Azzurri, by Sacchi's reckoning, can shrug off the result. Nonetheless, Brazil have substance about them and the next 12 months will be important ones for Kaka, now that he has joined Real Madrid.
As for Egypt, the team who won the African Cup of Nations so impressively last year with an outstanding back three and the now injured Amr Zaki up front, they have been stricken by an old phobia: the paralysis caused by trying to qualify for a World Cup. The African country with the best clubs on the continent and the finest record in the Cup of Nations have been at only two World Cups and last weekend's defeat in the qualifiers against Algeria sets back their efforts to reach next summer's first World Cup finals on African soil.
In Group A, which kicks off today, Spain have an easier-looking run to the semi-finals than Italy and Brazil. Their first opponents are New Zealand. They then meet Iraq, Asian champions, much admired as a set of footballers for their achievements in overcoming difficulties caused by the Gulf conflict: a last-four finish at the Olympic Games of 2004, the championship of Asia in 2007.
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Iraq go into the Confederations Cup coached by Bora Milutinovic, the old warhorse of global football. Milutinovic is the holder of a remarkable record in taking five different countries into World Cups and four of them - including Costa Rica and the USA - beyond the first stage. "I think we are capable of reaching at least a semi-final here," he says of his Iraqis.
That may not be overambitious. South Africa, whom Iraq meet in Johannesburg in the opening fixture this afternoon, are ranked 72 in the world by Fifa, only five higher than Iraq, and have omitted Benni McCarthy of Blackburn Rovers - a consequence of too many rows over his availability - and Nasief Morris, who plays for Recreativo in La Liga but missed an international deadline. So, much responsibility rests on the shoulders of Everton's Steven Pienaar. South Africa have 12 months, starting today, to convince their public they have a team decent enough to go with the privilege of hosting a World Cup.