Giovanni Trapattoni has warned Ireland fans and media not to read too much into Italy's pre-Euro 2012 troubles, writes Glenn Mason in Montecatini.
The Italian camp has been rocked by the Calcio Scommesse match-fixing scandal, with veteran keeper Gianluigi Buffon the latest player to be implicated.
Cesare Prandelli's side were also beaten 3-0 by Russia in their final pre-tournament friendly in Zurich last night.
Several defensive errors marred Italy's performance and three second half goals gave the Russians a confidence-boosting win.
The Azzurri's other warm-up game against Luxembourg in Parma on Tuesday was cancelled because of the devastating earthquake in the north of the country
The Republic of Ireland play Italy in their final Group C game in Poznan on 18 June and Trapattoni said it would be wrong to believe that Italy would not be back to their best by then.
He said: "It would be a great mistake if you think Italy is this, because we don't know how they have done in their training camp.
"Be sure when we meet Italy, Italy will be another team. We can see what the group did, but don't think this is the violin."
There has been strong criticism in Italy of the team's performance, but Trapattoni said that this is only natural and would also happen to Ireland.
He said: "It would be the same if we lost game 3-0. Everybody would criticise us."
