Spain will renew their rivalry with Italy in the 2nd semifinal of Confederation Cup at Fortaleza tonight.

               Two European heavy weights will renew their rivalry while current World champion & Euro champion Spain will clash with their European counterpart & Euro finalist Italy at Fortaleza in the second semifinal of this year’s Confederation cup tonight.

               Previously these two sides met in the final of EURO 2012 where La-Roja-Furia humiliated Azzuris by a comprehensive 4-0 margin. In this month on 19^th June these same two sides clashed in the final of Uefa Under-21 European final where Spain proved themselves as the winner again, beating Italy U-21 by 4-1 margin.

               Vincente Des Boscue has concern over two of his first eleven key players in the likes of Solado & Fabregass, while Cesar Prandelli will also miss the service of  two AC Milan players due to injury concern.,  prolific striker Mario Balotelli

in their upfront & Ignazio Abate in the right-back position.

               Abate is expected by Napoli’s Christain Maggio while Balotelli is likely to be replaced by Bolgna forward Alberto Gilardino..

                Italy will be benefitted with the service of their midfield maestro Andre Pirlo who is standing in the fag-end of his career & has recovered from his calf injury, likely to start from the beginning.

                Spain reached in the semifinal stage beating all their opponents convincingly in their group matches while Italy have reached here after losing against Brazil by 2-4 margin.

                  This could well have been the battle between Spain’s tiki-taka formation with the famous composed defence of Italy but since the beginning of the tournament we have not seen such Italian defence which generally we are habituated to see.

                Italian coach Cease Prandelli is likely to start with

3-5-2 formation by which they managed to held the same Spanish side by 1 all margin in their first match of last year’s Uefa Cup.

                 While the Spanish armada will stick on their tiki-taka formation by which they have shown their ability to breach any kind of tough defence.

                Since last two years we have been watching the Spanish clubs have been terminating form the semis stage of any kind of premier European club competitions so they will try here to keep their dominance up again against another European giant.

                 These two sides have the long history of rivalry between them. Should mention here that Italy only managed to beat Spain once in their last 8 encounters. An overall of 27 games played between these two football giants, they both have won 8 ties while 11 of then finished as a draw.

Probable Line-Ups –

Spain: Casillas, Arbeloa, Ramos, Pique, Alba, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, Pedro, Torres, Silva.

Italy: Buffon, Barzagli, Chiellini, Bonucci, Maggio, Pirlo, Rossi, Giaccherini, Candreva, Montolivo, Gilardino.

SANDIP KARMAKAR_ONLINE FOOTBALL JOURNAL. FACEBOOK . TWITTER. LINKEDIN .