The 2009 Confederations Cup should have served as a useful warm-up for Marcello Lippi's Italy, exactly a year before the start of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
Instead, the world champions have flown back home from Africa with more questions than answers after back-to-back defeats to Egypt and Brazil knocked Italy out of the competition.
If anything, Italy's three outings in the Confederations Cup have exposed the squad's limitations. Many were aware that, at present, Italy can't compete with the likes of European champions Spain and Brazil but their shock defeat to African champions Egypt gave Lippi plenty of food for thought.
Lippi must clearly refresh his squad if Italy are to produce a creditable challenge to retain the World Cup next year. The Italy mentor must change things in a careful manner.
Since his return to the helm of the national team a year ago, just after Italy's Euro 2008 quarter-final exit at the hands of Spain following a penalty shoot-out, Lippi has ruled out the possibility of making sweeping changes to his ageing squad that reached its peak during the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany.
It has been a year of partial rebuilding for Italy but results show that more needs to be done to ensure that the Azzurri remain competitive.
In World Cup qualifying, Lippi's men haven't dominated a modest Group Eight comprising Ireland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia and Montenegro. Even the results in warm-up matches have been far from convincing as Italy lost 2-0 to Brazil in a friendly last February and failed to impress in a narrow 4-3 win over New Zealand.
The Confederations Cup was an opportunity for Lippi to give more experience to the younger players because the stakes were not so high. Instead, the former Juventus and Inter mentor stuck with the 'old guard' in the belief that the likes of Luca Toni, Gianluca Zambrotta, Fabio Cannavaro and other heroes from the 2006 World Cup were still good enough to lead Italy to a successful tournament.
Lippi was proved wrong and if he fails to change his mind over future selections, Italy would face the risk of suffering an early exit from next year's World Cup.
Many critics and Italian fans were left flabbergasted by Lippi's persistence in choosing veterans like Zambrotta and Fabio Grosso at the expense of young Inter defender Davide Santon.
It would have made more sense for Santon to play for Pierluigi Casiraghi's team in the UEFA U-21 Championship in Sweden than to warm the subs' bench in Italy's Con-federations Cup matches.
Lippi must do a proper and objective reassessment of the veteran players' contribution. He should not feel obliged to keep selecting Cannavaro and company because of Italy's World Cup triumph in 2006.
It is also true that finding suitable replacements for the 'old guard' is a mammoth task for Lippi but if he continues to hesitate in trying other options, then in a year's time Cannavaro will still be Italy's first-choice central defender at 36 years of age.
Tactical approach
The 4-3-3 system adopted by Lippi in recent games was too attack-minded and should only be utilised when the players are at the peak of their physical form.
Also, such an approach requires a prolific finisher and two wide forwards to work. Italy may possess the latter players in Giuseppe Rossi, Mauro Camoranesi, Simone Pepe and Fabio Quagliarella but they currently lack a deadly finisher because Toni is clearly past his best and Alberto Gilardino struggles in international football.
Lippi must not fear change if he is to move forward. At this stage, change is essential for Italy if they are to stand a realistic chance of defending their World Cup crown in South Africa next year.
Lippi was not afraid to make hard decisions during his long coaching career at club level, especially during his reign at Juventus. One recalls that every summer, the Bianconeri used to trim and reshuffle their squad in order to balance their books but this didn't prevent Lippi from delivering the goods.
In the mid-nineties, Juventus replaced Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Baggio and Fabrizio Ravanelli with then relatively unknowns Filippo Inzaghi, Christian Vieri and Nicola Amoruso but still went on to win the scudetto and reached the 1997 and 1998 Champions League finals.
Between now and the 2010 World Cup finals, there is still a whole season to be played. To this end, the Serie A clubs can give Lippi a helping hand by giving more prominence to homegrown talent to increase the Italy coach's options ahead of the big tournament.