Italy have gone into half-time in their match against the USA with the scores level at 1-1 with both teams having had a man sent-off in their World Cup Group E encounter in Kaiserslautern on Saturday.

Italy started the game the stronger team, but it didn’t take long for the American’s, who were desperate to banish the memories of their 3-0 thrashing by the Czech Republic last Monday, to start having some attacks of their own.

A free-kick from Italy saw three players caught offside by the US offside trap, which was working very effectively and restricting the Azzurri attacks.

Reading’s Bobby Convey made an incisive run into the Italian penalty area and was eventually brought-down just outside the area.

The resulting free-kick, taken by Convey was smashed into the wall, and the corner was then wasted but it showed the American's intent.

Italy were seeing very little of the ball and were missing the defensive capabilities of the half-fit Gattuso, with Bruce Arena’s team having the most dangerous attacking plays.

Pablo Mastroeni put a wonderful threaded pass through the Italian defence to Clint Dempsey, but his shot went across the goal and wide.

Completely against the run-of-play, Italy scored in the 22nd minute from a free-kick taken by Cristian Zaccardo, who whipped the ball into the penalty area and Alberto Gilardino beat the US offside trap to dive for a headed goal past US keeper Kasey Keller to make it 1-0 to the Azzurri.

Things started to go horribly wrong for Italy in the 27th minute after Zaccardo scored an own-goal from a dangerous free-kick that he was attempting to clear.

Things got worse when, just two minutes later, Daniel de Rossi was sent off for elbowing Fulham striker Brian McBride in the face. De Rossi proclaimed his innocence but the replays showed that it was a cynical challenge.

Both sides were pushing for a second goal, but with the strength of the US attacks, Azzurri head coach Marcello Lippi decided to take off AS Roma captain Francesco Totti for the defensive clout of AC Milan’s Gennaro Gattusso in the 34th minute.

The energy had been taken out of the game by the sending-off and the Italian’s were in no mood to concede a second goal and were defending in numbers.

Luca Toni and Gianluca Zambrotta were still playing a partnership up-front for the Azzurri, but were consistently being caught out by the US offside trap.

Mastroeni came close to taking the lead in the last minutes, with a terrific long range effort that went inches high of the bar.

The game had a last minute shock during injury-time in the first when Mastroeni was sent-off rather harshly for a tackle on Andrea Pirlo, which the referee deemed to be dangerous and sent him straight-off

The teams went into half-time with the scores level, but with the USA wondering how they managed to throw their man advantage away.