In an international friendly played at Cesena, a second string Italy side beat Sweden 1-0, with the help of the only goal scored by the centre-back Giorgio Chiellini. The world champions found it very hard to impose themselves on their disciplined opponents, who were also playing without their star player Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Sweden having already been ousted from World Cup qualification failed to make any impressions and seemed very unlikely to make a come back as a side that had glorious 1990s.
Marcello Lippi had major changes to the Italy side which played nearly to its full strength in their 0-0 draw against Netherlands. The Italy side hardly had any familiar faces in Cesena apart from Chiellini who of course is a regular in the main team. It promised to be an interesting game with Italy full of players hoping to make a mark before the World Cup and Sweden players trying to impress their new boss Erik Hamren. The action soon began and Italy was caught off guard only 3 minutes into the match when Tobias Hysen got passed the Italian offside trap. However, the one-handed save by Federico Marchetti denied the eventual.
Italy soon stamped their dominance on the match and Sweden had a narrow escape when Andreas Isaksson tipped a header from Chiellini over the bar. It was only in the 28th minute that Italy tested success when Chiellini made a diving header to post his second overall goal for the side. The second half of the game saw plenty of substitutions which made it very difficult for either side to create any chances.
