World Cup 2014: 10 Teams Who Have Already Qualified

3. Italy

How they qualified: Winning their group in European qualifying Last time: Group Stage, finished last below New Zealand, Slovakia and Paraguay FIFA Ranking: 4 What are their chances in Brazil? The 2006 World Champions made probably the worst job ever of defending their title last time in South Africa. Not only did they fail to win a single game, but the Azzurri also finished below New Zealand, a country whose squad contained semi-professional players. It's a disaster that Italy will be keen to avenge in next year's competition. After World Cup winning manager Marcello Lippi returned for the awful 2010 campaign, he was pushed out in favour of former Fiorentina boss Cesare Prandelli. Under Prandelli, Italy have undoubtedly become more consistent performers, but there is a little doubt over whether they are quite up to the standard of the very best past Italy teams. In the 2012 European Championship a superb individual performance from mercurial entertainer Mario Balotelli saw them defeat Joachim Low's highly fancied Germany in the Semi-Final. However, Spain's dominant 4-0 win in the final showed that the Italians may have some way yet to go. Similarly, at the Confederations Cup earlier this year, they succumbed to a 4-2 defeat to hosts Brazil, struggled to beat Japan and were knocked out by Spain (although taking the match to penalties is a big improvement on the Euro Final). Prandelli's team appears to be one that's in transition. The stars 0f 2006 like captain, goalkeeper and the holder of Italy's appearance record Gianluigi Buffon and playmaker Andrea Pirlo, one of Italy's all time greats, continue to play well into their 30s, sharing the stage with gifted but troublesome youngsters Balotelli and Stephan El Shaarawy, his AC Milan teammate. At some point Prandelli is going to have to bring younger players like Mattia De Sciglio or Marco Verratti more into the team. As it is, though, Italy are likely to go to Brazil with the same tried and tested team that have comfortably brushed aside their qualifying opponents with 6 wins and 2 draws in 8 games. Italy are easily capable of making it to the later stages of the World Cup, but probably don't have quite what it takes to beat the best to the title.