With the champions two games into their World Cup campaign the story so far reads: two games drawn, two goals conceded from set pieces and two goals scored from set pieces. Many suggest there is a defensive frailty in this Italian defence, an area which has always been the team's forte. However, it is the latter statistic that is more worrying in that the Azzurri have yet to score from open play.

This year, for the first time in more than 20 years, Italy embarked on a World Cup journey without a natural trequartista. Many argue that the role of the "classic No10" has disappeared from the modern game but for Italy this position has always been paramount to its success.

In fact, more often than not the Italian national team has been spoilt for choice in this department. Going as far back as the 1970 World Cup, Ferruccio Valcareggi was forced to use a policy referred to as staffetta, or relay, where he would give Sandro Mazzola and Gianni Rivera one half each. In the 1990s Gianfranco Zola could not make the first XI as long as Roberto Baggio was fit and more recently Alessandro Del Piero and Francesco Totti were direct rivals for the role of fantasista.

So how does a country that has produced these creative players for so many years find itself in this situation? Italian football is clearly in transition at the moment and the development programmes at youth and Under-21 level have failed to create a young talent in this role.

However, in Antonio Cassano and Totti, Marcello Lippi has opted to omit perhaps Italy's most naturally talented attacking players still playing at the highest level. It is well known that Lippi has never been a fan of Cassano but how ironic is it that on a weekend which was perhaps the happiest of Cassano's life (he married water polo player Carolina Marcialis) the Italian national team experienced one of its darkest moments in recent history?

Totti may have perhaps played himself out of the squad with that outrageous tackle on Mario Balotelli in the dying moments of the Italian Cup final. Up to that point there was a general feeling that Lippi would call on Totti, one of his heroes of 2006. Some people feel that Totti would not have had the physical fitness required to play in a World Cup finals but anyone who watched Roma's gallant attempt to grasp the title from the hands of Inter would have witnessed the prowess and guile of Er Pupone, the exact qualities that have been lacking in the Azzurri's performances so far in South Africa.

So where does that leave Lippi for the remainder of the tournament? In the various formations that he has experimented with so far he has used Claudio Marchisio and Mauro Camoranesi in the role of trequartista, a position neither player is capable of playing.

The one ace up Lippi's sleeve may be the return to full fitness of Andrea Pirlo, a player who actually started his career in an advanced midfield position before dropping into a deep-lying role and becoming such a pivotal player for Italy in 2006. Pirlo is possibly the only player who can deliver the killer pass that Italy have been lacking and, with Riccardo Montolivo and Daniele De Rossi functioning well in their midfield partnership, Lippi may well be tempted to use Pirlo in the role of trequartista.

If a solution to Italy's lack of creativity is not found, unfortunately it looks like the fans could be holding up a sign that Roma fans regularly display when Totti is not available be it through injury or suspension: "No Totti, No Party."