Buffon backs Georgia to stop Scots

Despite losing 2-0 in Genoa, Gianluigi Buffon believes Georgia have the ability do Italy a major favour by stopping Scotland's momentum at the top of Group B.

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Italy trail Scotland by one point at the top of the section with France a further point adrift, and travel to Glasgow for their next qualifier on 17 November. Before that, Georgia play Alex McLeish's side in Tbilisi on Wednesday, and 29-year-old goalkeeper Buffon feels Georgia might prove a handful for the Scots despite going down to the world champions on Saturday.

'Nothing to lose'
"I believe Georgia can put Scotland in trouble because they are a good team and have nothing to lose," he explained. "I think Scotland could slip up. We are at risk of not qualifying with 26 or 27 points in our group. Obviously it would be our own fault for our bad start in the group but it would also be unfortunate because there are teams winning their groups with the same number of points."

'Do us a favour'
Fabio Grosso, who scored the second goal at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris, also believes Georgia have the skill to stop Scotland in their tracks. The Olympique Lyonnais player said: "They play very good football, keeping possession very well, and we hope they can do us a favour against Scotland. It might be very difficult but we know we have the ability to win in Glasgow and qualify in any case."

Italian focus
Italy coach Roberto Donadoni is not expecting any favours in Tbilisi, however, and is focused on next month's group decider. "We have a month to prepare," he said. "We still have to improve in several respects but I'm happy with the way we played and I'm sure we can play well there. I was not interested in Scotland's result [as they won 3-1 at home against Ukraine] - I was just interested in watching our performance and I think I got the responses I wanted."