Just a bit of a stroll for Italy

Thirty minutes after Italy had beaten Romania at the King Baudouin stadium in Brussels on Saturday night, experienced Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro did not even attempt to hide his sense of surprise:

"That was easier than expected," he said. "Maybe the fact that they were missing players counted for a lot but, in the end, we controlled the game almost from start to finish.

"This is a strange Italian team. Maybe we don't play fantastically well, maybe we don't play our opponents off the park, but we take our chances, we're rarely under pressure and we continue to keep creating chances even when we're winning.

"I tell you, this is a hungry Italian team, hungry for success."

Watching the almost unreal ease with which Italy cruised into Thursday's semi-final clash with Holland in Amsterdam, thanks to first-half goals from strikers Francesco Totti and Filippo Inzaghi, it was hard to disagree with Cannavaro.

The Italian mid-summer renaissance continues. With the side so clearly full of confidence, all is possible. The 56 million-strong armchair army back home in Il Bel Paese can keep on dreaming.

As widely anticipated, Italian coach Dino Zoff stuck to his original Euro 2000 line-up, once more relegating Alessandro Del Piero to the substitutes' bench and preferring to use his now established front pairing of Totti and Inzaghi, with Stefano Fiore supplying the ammunition from midfield. Zoff did spring one minor surprise by bringing in Juventus defender Mark Iuliano alongside Alessandro Nesta and Cannavaro in the back three, with captain Paolo Maldini pushed forward wide on the left.

The idea of this move was probably to exploit any potential weakness down the Romanian right, where right back Dan Petrescu was one of four first-choice Romanians ruled out either by suspension or injury (striker Adrian Illie and defenders Gheorge Popescu and Cosmin Contra were the others).

Those of us who had felt that this would prove to be a tight, less than spectacular game had our suspicions confirmed from the outset when both sides treated one another with due respect. Twenty-eight minutes had gone before Italy put together their first serious attack, a move in which the front trio of Totti, Inzaghi and Fiore combined well with the latter sending an ambitious strike on the volley high over the bar.

Four minutes later Fiore made amends. Following a free-kick out on the right, awarded for a foul by Liviu Ciobotariu on Inzaghi, lobbed in by Demetrio Albertini, the Romanian defence failed to clear effectively. The ball came all the way across to Maldini who knocked it back in to Fiore on the edge of the penalty area and from there the Udinese midfielder found Totti unmarked deep in the area with only goalkeeper Bogdan Stelea to beat. Totti did not miss.

Perhaps the turning point came just three minutes later. Rather than become demoralised by the Italian goal, the Romanians upped their tempo and rhythm. Three minutes after Totti's effort, striker Adrian Mutu hit a magnificent, 65-yard diagonal pass from deep in his own half right to the edge of the Italian penalty area, where Hagi beat goalkeeper Francesco Toldo to the ball, and chipped over Toldo, only to see his effort bounce against the upright.

Hagi's brilliant but unlucky effort was always going to be costly. Just how costly became fully apparent two minutes before half-time when Albertini combined with Inzaghi to beat the Romanian offside trap.

Played onside by Iulian Filipescu's tardiness in moving out of defence, Inzaghi was sent clean through and took his chance clinically and effectively for a 43rd-minute goal.

With the Italians 2-0 up at half-time, the match was as good as over. What little chance Romania had of getting back into the game evaporated on the hour when Hagi, already booked for a nasty foul on Conte just six minutes earlier, then took an obvious, histrionic dive in the Italian penalty area to earn himself a second yellow card and consequent sending-off from Portuguese referee Vitor Manuel Melo Pereira.

Four minutes later, Romania had their best chance of the second half when Moldovan blasted a close-range shot against Nesta following a corner kick. Reduced to 10 men and two goals down, Romania hardly bothered the Italians from there.

As Italy headed back to their training camp in Geel, near Antwerp, one was left to reflect on coach Zoff's post-match analysis: "I'm pleased with the team, but only reasonably pleased because I know we can do better."

Indeed? Holland, you have been warned.