Italy has done it: In the battle of Croke Park the Azzurri have made a last minute draw thanks to a goal scored by Alberto Gilardino. A highly important draw for Marcello Marcello Lippi's boys, as it means the direct qualification for the 2010 World Cup in Southafrica, while Giovanni Trapattoni's Irish team will have to play the play-offs, probably against a team like France or Portugal... 

It was a tight race against the team of "Trap", the Squadra Azzurra had to fight to get this point, but for them the important thing certainly is to have done it, no matter how. Now Italy is in a very comfy situation, they will practically play a friendly game against Cyprus this wednesday evening (7 p.m. in Parma). By the way, the last times that Italy was qualified one match before the end of the qualifiers was in 1982 and in 2006...

Cyprus is on the fourth place in Group 8 with 9 points, in the best case they could reach the third place occupied by Bulgaria, but even that isn't very likely to happen, as they would have to beat Italy to do so. The first game in Cyprus was won by Italy (2-1) and this time as well the Italians are the huge favorites. Lippi might let some of his players have a break in order not to risk any unnecessary injuries, but even with a B-team Italy will probably win. The exact result could be a 2-0 for Italy, in this case the best odd is on Bet365 with 4,33.