Turin, Italy - Fabio Grosso and Vincenzo Iaquinta were on target for Italy Wednesday in a 2-0 win over Bulgaria that ended a long scoring drought and virtually secured the Azzurri's presence at the 2010 World Cup finals. The world champions had gone through a run of four games without scoring, beside beating Georgia 2-0 Saturday through two own goals, and have now a four-point lead over Ireland in Group 8.
The Irish in mid-October will look to beat Italy, who, however, have an easy home game to Cyprus as their last game.
An unusually bold start from Marcello Lippi's side brought Alberto Gilardino close to scoring before Grosso on 11 minutes flicked a feed from Andrea Pirlo under the bar to beat Dimitar Ivankov.
The tall defender, who recently moved to Juventus, showed not to have forgotten the scoring habits he displayed at the 2006 World Cup, when his second goal was the crucial penalty in a successful shootout in the final with France.
Iaquinta, also a world champion, scored his goal on 39 minutes after a good action with Gilardino to confirm his good form and will to work hard for theteam's schemes.
The Juve striker had come close earlier when his firm drive was cleared on the goal line by Stanislav Manolev.
Italy's Gianluigi Buffon got busy for the first time on 18 minutes on a central header from Rangelov and on 25 minutes made a miraculous save to slap wide a sudden volley fired by Martin Petrov off a corner kick action.
With the Azzurri fully satisfied with the score, the second half took off at a slower pace and Buffon had to make a simple save before Claudio Marchisio aimed a wide drive off a pass from Mauro Camoranesi.
A serious threat to Buffon came from Valeri Bojinov, a substitute playing with Italian side Parma, but his drive on 79 minutes grazed the woodwork as the goalkeeper seemed unable to reach the ball.
With eight minutes to go, substitute Giuseppe Rossi also came close with a drive that forced Ivankov's deflection.
"It was a very good game with two great goals," Lippi said. "These boys showed that they can play well. We could have scored more, but it was a good evening of football."
