Argentina made light of the absence of leading forward Lionel Messi to beat Italy 2-1 in an entertaining friendly in Rome last night.
The South Americans dominated the early stages in front of a half-full Olympic Stadium and Gonzalo Higuain put them ahead after 20 minutes with a curling shot after a sloppy error by Italian Daniele de Rossi.
Argentina went 2-0 up when substitute Ever Banega fired home a fierce low shot from the edge of the area just four minutes after coming on at the start of the second half.
Lorenzo Insigne pulled one back for Italy against the run of play with a sweetly struck curling shot from outside the area on 76 minutes, setting up a spirited finale by the hosts who finally exerted some concerted pressure in the closing stages.
In Basle, Dani Alves scored an embarrassing own goal to send an irritable Brazilian team tumbling to a 1-0 defeat against Switzerland, ending their run of six consecutive wins.
Alves put through his own net at the start of the second half to give the feisty Swiss just reward for taking the match to the Confederations Cup champions.
Far from being overawed by facing a team who demolished Spain 3-0 in the Confederations Cup final in June, unsung Switzerland tweaked Brazilian nerves with hard tackling and cheeky skills which clearly unnerved the South Americans.
Xherdan Shaqiri produced an inspired performance for Switzerland as he upstaged Brazil forward Neymar who was jeered several times by the crowd after falling over and failing to win a free-kick.
Having threatened several times in the first half, Switzerland went ahead in the 47th minute when Hans Seferovic crossed from the right and Alves, under no real pressure, headed into his own goal at the far post.
Germany had to recover twice to draw 3-3 against Paraguay in Kaiserslautern with their defence looking more like a work in progress than that befitting 2014 World Cup contenders.
Germany’s eye-popping abundance of talent in midfield was clearly obvious as the hosts carved out a dozen clear scoring chances but their backline was leaking badly in the first half, letting in three goals.
Goals from Ilkay Guendogan and Thomas Mueller cancelled out Paraguay’s surprise 2-0 lead and Lars Bender levelled late in the game after Miguel Samudio had again put the visitors ahead on the stroke of half-time.