Italy will welcome Northern Ireland to Pescara tonight in this Euro 2012 qualifier.
I will start by mentioning that Italy have already qualified top of this group whilst N Ireland are second from bottom in the group and now have nothing to play for except pride.
The hosts however will want to finish on a high in front of their passionate fans and a win tonight will see them finish the group stage undefeated.
Italy have been impressive throughout qualifying, ok so they were held too 2 away draws, one by this very team Northern Ireland and the other Serbia, however Italy have not been the best travelling side over the last few years and its when they play at home where they play their best football.
Italy have won all 4 of their home games in the group stage and have not even conceded a goal yet.
They beat the Faroe Islands 5-0, Serbia 3-0, Estonia 3-0 and most recently a 1-0 win too Slovenia.
Both sides will probably make a few changes for tonight's game, in fact N Ireland will be forced too but I will get to that shortly.
Italy have by far the better squad and have some great players waiting on the sidelines ready to impress.
Osvaldo is a striker for Roma who has been playing some great football of late scoring 3 times already in Serie A.
He will be aided by the likes of Rossi, Aquilani, De Rossi, Marchisio and of course Pirlo who will be pulling all the strings in the heart of midfield.
This kind of side should be too experienced for what will pretty much be the Northern Ireland B team.
Out for Ireland tonight are Chris Brunt, Sammy Clingan, Grant McCann, Lee Camp all through injury whilst Lafferty misses through suspension and Johnny Evans a big doubt also through injury.
On top of all this Captain Aaron Hughes has announced his retirement from intentional football and will also miss this game through injury.
Apart from a couple of stand out players this is going to leave a very young and inexperienced starting 11 for Northern Ireland tonight and I wonder if a trip to Italy could just all be a bit out of their depth tonight.
Even with a full squad available, Northern Ireland have had a nightmare away record through qualifying.
They failed to even beat the Faroe Islands and left with just a point after a 1-1 draw, they lost 2-1 to Serbia and were hammered 4-1 by Estonia.
In fact Northern Ireland have just 2 away wins on their record in their past 22 games and one of them was a below par win 0-3 against minnows San Marino!
For me this should be a comfortable home win tonight and if Italy score early it could be a landslide victory.
Again the odds on the outright win are not for me (as low as 1.14 with several bookmakers!)
Instead I am going to opt for Italy to score in both halves of this game and there is clearly bags of value involved.
Victor Chandler are as low as 1.44 and a lot of bookies are drifting a round the 1.5 mark, Ladbrokes though clearly have a different opinion and are priced at 2.1, I feel someone down at Ladbrokes has made a mistake on this one, these odds wont last for long and my money is going down now.
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