The mood in the Italy camp was summed up by Fabio Cannavaro, who exclaimed: 'I am confident but I don't know why.' There is plenty of unease among the world champions. Their manager, Marcello Lippi, has been accused of investing too much faith in the ageing men who won him football's ultimate trophy in Berlin. There are injury concerns over Andrea Pirlo and their performances in the warm-up campaigns have hardly carried the swagger of world champions ' drawing with Switzerland and losing to Mexico.

Paraguay have their own injury problems, centred around Oscar Cardozo, who damaged his ankle in the Lisbon derby back in April and has struggled to be fit since. Paraguay can ill-afford to miss a man who scored 36 times for Benfica last season, especially since Roque Santa Cruz is also not fully fit and Salvador Cabanas, whose goals also helped Paraguay to South Africa, was put out of the World Cup by a gunman outside a Mexico City nightclub. Their form since qualification has been mixed but they should not be overawed.

Three weeks ago, after seeing Paraguay lose to Ireland their manager, Gerado Martino, said 'when I think about Italy everything concerns me'. He should be more relaxed. World champions almost never perform well in their opening game of the next tournament. In the last 10 World Cups, the reigning champions have managed six goals in their opening matches and one of those was an own-goal. Given Paraguay's weakness in attack this might be a very low-scoring draw.