Italy/USA 
My Pick: Italy
Bruce Arena's men face the Azzurri in a do or die game at the Fritz Walterstadion in Kaiserslautern on Saturday. Kaiserslautern in German means home of the greats and some of the USA players will definitely want to leave a mark on this game. Prominent among them will be Eddie Johnson, the Kansas City Wizards striker, who was their standout player against the Czechs.
Italy gave a decent account of themselves in their 2-0 win against African newbies Ghana. Their defence was rattled by the pace of the Ghanians, but the African stars could not convert their chances and that helped the Italians. Francesco Totti ran the show till his early substiution and will be looking to impose himself on the Americans. The Americans would also do well to be wary about Andrea Pirlo who enjoyed a marvellous game against Ghana and Fiorentina goal machine Luca Toni, who is yet to have opened his account in the World Cup. De Rossi,Camoranesi and goal scorer Iaquinta are on yellow cards for this game and Gattuso and Zambrotta have not fully recovered from injury.
The USA were outclassed by the Czechs in every department of their opening game and will be looking to erase memories of that game. They are by no means looking like the fifth best side in the world at this moment and will have to pull up their socks for this one. Anything less than a win might well see them back on the flight home and they will be keen to put up a good performance. The only advantage for the USA is that most of their players barring Da Marcus Beasley and Claudio Reyna are unknown to the Italians.
My verdict:
If the USA play any way like they did against the Czechs then there's little chance that they will win. But football is an unpredictable game and so are Marcello Lippi's side.
Lets wait and see!
