Lippi to give Santon his Azzuri debut

ITALY coach Marcelo Lippi will give young Inter Milan defender Davide Santon his senior international debut against Northern Ireland tonight after admitting to being impressed with him in training.

The 18-year-old has made a phenomenal rise from Inter’s youth team to become one of their first-team mainstays this season, convincing Lippi to take a closer look at him.

And the World Cup-winning coach is more than impressed with what he has seen.

“I had said that he was predestined (to be an international) and now that I have seen him in real life, I can confirm that is exactly how it is,” he said.

“Santon is only a lad, yet he has a great personality, plays the game easily and has the capacity of fitting in.”

While one eye will be on this game against Northern Ireland, the other will the Republic of Ireland who could leap above Italy at the top of their qualifying group with a victory over Bulgaria.

“If Ireland win, then they go to the top of the group having played one game more than us,” said Lippi.

“If Bulgaria win, then they are back in the race, but they still have to come to play us at our own home. We will have to wait and see.”

Northern Ireland coach Nigel Worthington is hoping to see his young side cause an upset in Pisa.

“We want to try and get a decent result,” he said. We are looking for a good performance and for these young ones to feel they are in a situation where they are coming through.”

Meanwhile Fabio Capello has revealed the “big confidence” he has in his England players to perform well at the 2010 World Cup.

England can take a huge step towards ensuring qualification by overcoming Kazakhstan in Almaty today (4pm) and then Andorra at Wembley next Wednesday.

Capello has faith in skipper John Terry and the rest of his team to do themselves justice in South Africa in 12 months’ time.

Capello said: “First we have to get through to South Africa but I think we will be a very good team if we achieve that.

“We are very strong and we can play against all the best teams of the best countries in the world. I am very happy with these players, with this group and I have big confidence in the future.”

Capello will not use end-of-season tiredness as an excuse should England slip up against Kazakhstan.

He said: “The problems of players, if they are tired or not, is no excuse. We have to play, we have to win and everyone who plays has to be very strong.”

Capello will assess the fitness of Rio Ferdinand after Saturday’s game. He has not travelled to Almaty because of a back problem.

Capello was also keen to play down reports of a training ground altercation between midfielder Gareth Barry and another player after the Manchester City newcomer had been challenged.

He said: “During training sometimes, some players after one tackle push the other one but yesterday I saw nothing.”