Italy is a team that regardless of winning the World Cup in 1934, 1938 and in 1982 has not performed up to the expectations in the past. If I was to sum up their show off in Japan Korea World Cup the word boring is the first that comes to my mind. The strategy was to get people to focus on how hard it is to face a host nation.

Marcelo Lippi is now Italys new coach, and he has taken a hard-line approach with the players not paying any attention to the inflated egos of some of the Italian stars that he handles. In the seasons of 2004 and 2005, Lippi sought to refresh the team by bringing in nine stars to the team and they turned out to be just what Italy needed during the qualification campaign.Amongst Lippis choices are 5 from Juventus, 5 players from AC Milan and 4 from Palermo.

Czech Republic confirmed their presence at the international scene at the 2004 European Championship. They made some of the best performances in terms of good football and during the tournament, and losing only in the final stage playing a great semi-final game against Greece. Karel Bruckner is the coach and he secured a place for them in Germany 2006 World Cup with a team strong in the attack with a lot of style and with their heart Pavel Nedved.

They also have Petr Cech, who might be the Premierships best goalkeeper. Tomas Rosicky domains the midfield and he is surely going to make an impact on this tournament and Milan Baros who seems to come back to live whenever he is playing for his country.

Some might think though that this group is a two team competition, however USA and Ghana are in all the way. It is hard to be fair when you see analize what Czech Republic and Italy can do, but the Americans can be dangerous to underestimate. The USA have some genuine top-class youngsters in their lineup and it really wouldn't be wise to overlook the USA, but at the same time, if the Czechs and Italy perform as we know they can, then they shouldn't fare better than third place in Group E.