By David Owen at Ellis Park, Johannesburg
June 24 – Call them the new North Korea.
World Cup debutants Slovakia today wrote the most famous chapter of their country’s footballing history, dumping holders Italy out of the World Cup with a shock 3-2 victory.
More than four decades after Pak Do Ik’s celebrated goal for North Korea sent the Italians packing from the 1966 World Cup that was eventually won by England, a brace from man-of-the-match Robert Vittek gave the East European side a lead they never relinquished.
Bereft of ideas for most of the match, coach Marcello Lippi’s ageing side at least mustered a grandstand finish, notching two late goals and having another erroneously disallowed for offside.
Unfortunately for them, in between times the almost unknown Kamil Kopunek of Spartak Trnava had lobbed a superb third Slovakian goal.
Kopunek had only been on the field for a few moments, making the decision to bring him off the bench by coach Vladimir Weiss, one of the most inspired substitutions in World Cup history.
Italy’s defeat ensures a changing of the guard at the top of world football, with both 2006 finalists - them and France - knocked out of the competition in its opening phase.
And their ignominious exit leaves the Italian national game at its lowest ebb for a long, long time.
Only last month, the country had to swallow the disappointment of coming third and last - behind winners France and Turkey - in the race to host the 2016 European championships.
The game is beset by financial difficulties and dwindling attendances.
True, it does boast - in Milan’s Internazionale - the European club football champions.
However, not a single Inter player featured in Lippi’s squad, mainly because they are mostly here representing Brazil and Argentina.
The failure of their campaign also deals a blow to sports equipment manufacturer Puma, for whom the Italians probably represented their best chance of supplying the kit worn by the World Cup winners.
For the bulk of the match, it was impossible to credit the decline in the standard of Italian defensive play from the heights attained over most of the preceding decade.
The first goal was gifted to Slovakia by a misplaced pass by midfielder Daniele De Rossi; the second featured an inadequate clearance and poor anticipation; the third, non-existent marking of a Slovakian midfield runner.
Only one player looked to have the hallmark of a true Italian defender - and that was Slovakia’s Martin Skrtel.
Poor Lippi was left to stand hands on hips at one corner of the Italian technical area in his baggy tracksuit bottoms, looking like an old age pensioner who has just been told his local hospital is closing down.
The result provided some much-needed cheer for Eastern Europe at this World Cup, after Slovenia and Serbia had both been eliminated in quick succession.
Six or seven years ago, I spent one of the less fulfilling nights of my journalistic career in Bratislava, watching England edge to victory over the home side.
It was bitterly cold.
It was teeming with rain.
And I had been allocated a seat on a bench in an uncovered part of the ground.
Perhaps my assessment of that underwhelming performance was coloured by the circumstances in which it was written, but I would say Vittek and his team-mates have come on an awful lot since then.
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