Italy hit rock bottom

There have been some poor Italian teams in the World Cup before, but the team in South Africa 2010 took the biscuit.

In 1966 Italy lost to North Korea 1-0 in the group and went home early as a result.

In 1982 Italy won the World Cup, didn't win a single game in their group - drawing all three - but managed to hit form and dump Brazil out of the cup before going on to beat West Germany 3-1 in the final.

In 1994 they lost to Brazil in the final on penalties, but were hugely unimpressive in the group, qualifying only in third place at the expense of Norway on goals scored, with all four teams finishing with four points.

In 2002, Italy once again scraped out of the group with one win, one draw and one defeat, but then lost on a golden goal to South Korea.

This time they couldn't squeeze out of a truly poor group and finished bottom, behind Paraguay (who look reasonable, to be fair), Slovakia and New Zealand. Never at any stage in the past two weeks have Italy looked anything like a team who might threaten to come good. Some navel gazing is bound to follow.

It's a World Cup of immense interest, without hitting any particular heights of excellent football or a high goal count (an average of 2.16 goals per game in 44 games to date). France and Italy have fallen, and Spain today will probably have to beat Chile to progress. Meanwhile South American teams are making hay...