ARMENIA Berezovsky Aleksanyan, Mkoyan, Arz'yan, Hayrapetyan Mkrtchyan, Yedigaryan Ozbiliz, Mkhitaryan, Sarkisov Movsisyan

ITALY Buffon Maggio, Bonucci, Barzagli, Criscito De Rossi, Pirlo, Marchisio Montolivo  Osvaldo, Balotelli

After drawing with Bulgaria and gaining an unconvincing three points at the expense of minnows Malta, Cesare Prandelli will be hoping for a more convincing performance against a team ranked 56 places below them in the Fifa Ranking.

To ensure this, the former Fiorentina coach will name a full-strength side with the major talking point being the exclusion of Giorgio Chiellini from Italy’s back four in favour of Andrea Barzagli. After his off-field troubles, Domenico Criscito is recalled to the starting XI while Christian Maggio will occupy the right-back berth.

In midfield, Prandelli will select a trio of De Rossi, Marchisio and Pirlo with Ricardo Montolivo being deployed just behind strikers Pablo Osvaldo (who will spearhead the Azzurri attack for the third match in a row) and the returning Mario Balotelli, who will partner with the Roma frontman for the first time.

Armenia, meanwhile, will be banking on a raucous home support as they look to pull off the greatest result in their history. Under head coach Vardan Minasyan, Armenia have been steadily improving as a unit and their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign was their best to date (they finished third in their group and a mere four points from qualification).

With the retirement of full-back Sargis Hovsepyan and the suspensions of Marcos Pizzelli and Gevorg Ghazaryan following their dismissals in the 1-0 defeat to Bulgaria, Minasyan will be forced to make changes to a normally settled team. He will hope, though, that with a fiercely partisan crowd and dangerous players in attack his side can gain a result that sends shockwaves around Europe.

• Italy are currently ranked eighth in the Fifa rankings.

• This will be the first official meeting between the Azzurri and Armenia.

• Cesare Prandelli has selected a squad made up of players from 12 different teams.

• Armenia won back its sovereignty in 1992 after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

• Goalkeeper Roman Berezovsky is the most experienced player in the Armenia squad with 73 caps to his name.

• Head coach Vardan Minasyan has the highest win percentage in Armenia’s history  - 35.7 per cent.