Football world cup

Italy is out ... repeat ... Italy is out of the World Cup after a brilliant Slovakian side was far too good for the reigning champions.

Two goals from Robert Vittek, one either side of the break, and a third from substitute Kapil Kopunek with minutes remaining ended the Italian's defence of their trophy at the group stage, joining France, the team they beat in the final four years ago, on the plane home.

Italy does not tend to go out of World Cup's early. In the previous 10 tournament they have reached four finals, winning two of them. They have lost out at the semi-final stage twice, the quarter finals once and have only went out in the opening round once back in 1974.

With four World Cups in the trophy cabinet they are second only to Brazil who have five. In short they are World Cup royalty and expect to qualify from any group, but especially one such as this.

They deserved little more after two insipid displays and the makings of a third here until they went 2-0 down and rallied to give themselves a fighting chance through Antonio di Natale's strike to bring the score back to 2-1 then when they seemed dead and buried Fabio Quagliarella brought them fresh hope making it 3-2 in injury time.

It ended as a gripping, thrilling, heart-stopping contest as Italy showed the kind of spirit and desire they have been missing these last two weeks.

At least they went down fighting which is more than can be said of the French.

The opening goal came midway through a first half where Italy were second best in almost every department. A header from Robert Vittek, who plays in Turkey, found Mark Hamsik clear but the Napoli attacker didn't realsie how much time he had and should have taken a touch rather than attempt the ambitious volley which he mishit wide.

It was a sign of things to come as these two Slovakians caused Italy all sorts of problems and combined after 25 minutes to put the reigning world champions behind.

A criminally loose pass from Roma's Daniele De Rossi, deep in his own half, was intercepted by Hamsick who caught the Italian defence on their heels, passing to Vittek who drilled a low shot, past the desperate dive of Federico Marchetti and into his bottom right corner.

It was scarcely more than the Slovakians deserved. The attacking trio of Hamsik, Jendrisek and Stoch were causing problems for an Italian defence high on experience but low on pace, and carried far more threat than anything the likes of Simone Pepe or Antonio Di Natale could muster at the other end.

The Italian midfield was crying out for Andrea Pirlo to come off the bench, but losing your best midfielder is not enough of an excuse when it comes to tournament football.

Both Michael Ballack and Michael Essien failed to even make it to their respective squads yet Germany and Ghana have, as we know, both qualified.

Ad Feedback The Slovakians lost central midfielder Zdenko Strba when Gennaro Gattuso's leg naturally followed through from a good tackle but caught the Slovakian's knee with his studs, leaving a deep gouge which produced a lot of blood.

At the end of the first half the teams performances were summed up in injury time as Vittek set up Juraj Kucka, who fired a thuderous volley into the side netting, while Italy went straight up the other end only for Montolivo to mishit a timid shot off target.

Marcello Lippi took immediate action at half time, removing Gattuso for an inglorious end to a glorious career and replacing him with Fabio Quagliarella of Napoli, while fullback Dominico Criscito was withdrawn for Christian Maggio.

Then Andrea Pirlo appeared from the bench, to replace Montelivo, to make his first contribution to the Italian's on-field campaign. He inspired his teammates before he had even taken to the field as Di Natale found himself clear on the right of the Slovakian box, but he failed to get his foot around the ball and it was skewed wide.

There was nothing calm about the Italians now as they commanded more of the ball and created another chance for Di Natale who couldn't find the target.

The Slovakians were not taking a step back either as they tried to exploit the gaps left by Italy who were chasing one goal, at the very least. It also came after 66 minutes when the Slovakian keeper had misread a corner was stranded in no-man's land allowing Quagliarella to fire in a left-foot volley which was blocked on the line by Skrtel and while video evidence appeared to show the lineman got he decision right and ruled out a goal, debates will presumably rage for a while about whether it crossed the line or not.

They were superseded in the 73rd minute when Hamsick and Vittek combined again, with the former firing a low cross from the right where Vittek arrived first and doubled Slovakians' advantage.

If they thought their job was done for the night they were very much mistaken as Italy refused to go quietly, throwing everything forward and showing more attacking hunger than they had in the rest of their games combined.

Then Italy hit back when Quagliarella played a beautiful one-two with Iaquinta before his shot was blocked by the keeper only to fall at the feet of Di Natale who prodded home to give the Italians a lifeline.

Queue bedlam in the goalmouth as players rolled around in the net, holding their faces and claiming all sorts of skullduggery.

Italy were not giving up without a fight and thought they had come back from the dead when Quagliarella had the ball in the back of the net with five minutes tio go, but the Napoli attacker had strayed offside.

Then, just as the crowd began to believe they were going to pull the rabbit out of the hat, Slovakia struck on the break with Kopunek lifting the ball over the keeper to apparently seal the victory.

The final act had not been played out though as Quagliarella again pulled the italians back into the mix with a long-range shot that flew into the Slovakian net.

It was too little too late.

The Kings are dead, who next?