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Midfielder Mauro Camoranesi has a right knee injury and could miss the match. Camoranesi picked up the injury in Italy's 3-0 quarterfinal victory over Ukraine on Friday. He sat out a training session Sunday and was planning to test his fitness in training Monday, team physician Enrico Castellacci said.
A friendly game at home in March is one thing. Playing the hosts in the World Cup semifinals at a stadium they've never lost in is quite another. Naturally, Italy isn't expecting a repeat of its 4-1 win over Germany four months ago.
"Right now I think each team's strength is the same," defender Gianluca Zambrotta said ahead of Tuesday's game in Dortmund.
"I think it will be a completely different game. That was a friendly played in the middle of the league season. Now everyone's focusing only on the World Cup," Zambrotta said. "And they've got players in good form like Lahm, Klose and Frings."
Klose leads the World Cup with five goals while Werder Bremen teammate Torsten Frings and Bayern Munich defender Philipp Lahm have a goal each. They've been instrumental in reviving a Germany team that was in crisis three months before the World Cup.
After the loss in Florence, Juergen Klinsmann's days as Germany's coach seemed numbered. Italy got goals in that game from Alberto Gilardino, Luca Toni, Daniele De Rossi and Alessandro Del Piero before Robert Huth notched Germany's lone goal in the 82nd minute.
"I said then and I'll say it again now. That score does not reflect the German team's gap with Italy and it doesn't reflect that Italy is that much better than Germany," Italy coach Marcello Lippi said.
Germany has not lost in Dortmund in 14 games.
"We're used to finding the host country in our way," Zambrotta said. "It happened at the World Cup in France, the European Championship in Belgium-Netherlands and the last World Cup in South Korea."
In 1998, Italy lost to France on penalties in the quarterfinals. Two years later, the Azzurri beat the Netherlands on penalties in the semifinals, then lost to South Korea on a golden goal in 2002.
Italy blamed the loss to South Korea on Ecuadorean referee Byron Moreno.
Zambrotta is hoping Mexican referee Benito Archundia doesn't influence the outcome this time.
"I don't think the officiating will be uneven," said Zambrotta, who ended the South Korea game on crutches.
Still, he echoed widespread criticism of the high number of yellow and red cards handed out in this tournament.
"I do think the officiating has been excessively harsh. Soccer is still a man's game and you can't try to remove the physical contact," Zambrotta said. "If these are the parameters maybe it would be better to expel a player after three yellow cards instead of two."
FIFA is examining evidence of Frings for his role in a post-match melee in the quarterfinals against Argentina.
TV images show Frings appearing to strike at an Argentine player.
Italy lost standout playmaker Francesco Totti to a three-game ban at the 2004 European Championship after Danish TV cameras caught him spitting at a Denmark player.
Italy has not asked FIFA to investigate Frings, however.
"We have to think about ourselves right now," midfielder Gennaro Gattuso said. "We can't allow ourselves to create controversy or lose energy thinking about the deeds of others. The environment is going to be tough for us, with 70,000 fans rooting for them.
"I'm not interested in talking about TV evidence," Gattuso added. "Two years ago a private Danish TV station captured Totti, now they're saying we're the sneaky ones for doing the same thing. Let's just leave it and move forward. Let's prepare our game how we need to prepare it."
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