A goalless draw is enough to see Italy through

Yet, a 2-2 tie in Naples will put the Russians through and the Italians, who tied 1-1 in Moscow 15 days ago, would fail to qualify without losing a game.“It will be necessary to keep the Russians far away from the penalty area,” said Italian coach Cesare Maldini. “It would be permissible to make the calculations and realize that a 0-0 draw would be enough.’

‘Since their 3-0 victory over Poland, also in Naples, Italy have tied with Georgia (0-0), England (0-0) and Russia (1-1). Although they have a 5-4-0 record from World Cup games, their last win was in April.

The Italians are also without Christian Vieri, scorer of the goal in Moscow, because the free-scoring Atletico Madrid striker is missing with a thigh injury. His replacement, Pierluigi Casiraghi, is less than 100 per cent because of strained knee ligaments. Fabrizio Ravanelli, now of Olympique Marseille, could start. Alessandro del Piero is likely to be a first choice forward instead of the out of form Gianfranco Zola.

The defence looks solid and that should be the key to Italy’s advancement to the finals for the 10th time in a row.

The Russians will be without Fiorentina winger Andrei Kanchelskis, who caused the Italian defence problems in the first leg before he was injured.Igor Kolyvanov, who also plays in Italy for Bologna, is another threat along with Sergei Yuran and Dmitry Alenichev as the Russians bid to back coach Boris Ignatyev’s prediction of a 2-2 tie. That result would put Russia through on the away goals rule and leave the Italians in tears.

“The rules are unjust,” Maldini said in a criticism of the qualifying format. “The fact that the second-place (group) teams don’t directly qualify is proving to be murder.”

Meanwhile, the Yugoslavs are looking upon their game as a first warm-up match for the finals and will field as strong a team as possible against the Hungarians.

Hungarian coach Janos Csank, who is expected to resign after the match, hopes for some kind of damage limitation performance.

The Belgium-Ireland game appears well balanced. But home advantage, the return of a suspended player, injuries to the Irish and a strong fightback in Dublin make the Belgians favourite to make the finals.

Fiorentina star Luis Oliveira returns for the Belgians having missed the 1-1 tie in Dublin while Denis Irwin, who scored Ireland’s goal with a spectacular free kick, is missing with a knee injury.

Vital clash for Iran, Japan

Kuala Lumpur: With a World Cup berth at stake, Japan and Iran meet on Sunday on a neutral field that may be unfriendly to both a rain-soaked pitch in Malaysia’s Johor Bahru.

The winner will become the third Asian qualifier. Saudi Arabia and South Korea have already qualified. The loser still has another chance — a two-leg playoff against Australia for the final World Cup berth at stake.

As co-host of the 2002 World Cup with South Korea, Japan is trying to avoid being the first nation to stage the quadrennial championship without having played in one first.

Germany, SA friendly

DUESSELDORF: German coach Berti Vogts has played up the seriousness of tomorrow’s encounter with South Africa, pitching the European champions against the African champions as the match launching the national team’s World Cup preparations. Germany have arranged eight friendly internationals before the World Cup kicks off in France on June 10 next year.

Vogts is thought likely to try one, possibly two newcomers from the start, with defender Thomas Linke and midfielder Dietmar Hamann the likely candidates to make their debuts.