Assistant manager Roy Keane says the Republic of Ireland “have got to be streetwise” against Italy on Wednesday.
The Azzurri have already won Group E, but the Irish are fighting to go through as one of the best runners-up, meaning they have to win.
“You have got to be streetwise in this game. We’re not here to make friends, the fans are doing that,” Keane warned in a Press conference.
Assistant manager Roy Keane says the Republic of Ireland “have got to be streetwise” against Italy on Wednesday.
The Azzurri have already won Group E, but the Irish are fighting to go through as one of the best runners-up, meaning they have to win.
“You have got to be streetwise in this game. We’re not here to make friends, the fans are doing that,” Keane warned in a Press conference.
“If there’s a player on the break? My advice would probably be, yeah, take him out. We saw Italy do it against Belgium. A player did it on the half-way line and got a yellow card.
“He literally jumped all over someone’s back when Belgium were breaking, and then he kicked the ball out of play.
“From the players’ point of view, if you smell danger, if you can hold the player up and you can win the ball, fantastic, but if you think ‘we’re in trouble here’, then you do whatever you can to get the right result, and if that’s fouling, then you foul.
“It’s not a crime, you might get a yellow card, you might even get a red, but your team might win.
“Sacrifices, you’ve got to make sacrifices for your team. Does that answer your question? What do you think I would do?”
The Republic were beaten 3-0 by Belgium on Saturday, and Keane knows they’ll have to be better to stand any chance against Antonio Conte’s side.
“When you're chasing the ball quite a bit and you do get it, your concentration levels can be down and that's when you make mistakes. That's why it's so important to look after the ball.
“That frustrated probably the manager [Martin O’Neill] and all of us the other day, whatever about the mistakes and individual mistakes, that we gave the ball away far too cheaply.
“It's no problem giving it away when you're trying stuff when you are 20, 30 yards from goal, but when you're sloppy around the middle of the park, it just puts you under massive pressure.
“When you give the ball away so cheaply, against a good team, you're in big, big trouble and we got punished for that because even a couple of the goals, we were in decent possession and gave it away cheaply.
“If we are as sloppy in possession against Italy, there's a good chance it's going to be the same result because we are up against quality players and quality players will punish you.
“We’re up against quality players and an established team who have had a very good start to the tournament, but there are no surprises there.
“For me, the Italian team were always favourites to top the group. The players they have, huge experience and with a lot of trophies under their belts.
“We had a bad day at the office the other day, but we’ve got a good group and we have had setbacks before. We’re looking forward to the match and it will be a very, very tough game. We knew from the start they would be very difficult games with the draw we had.
“It’s only a year or so ago that people weren’t expecting us to qualify. That is the name of the game. The other day when we had a few plaudits after what we felt was a good performance against Sweden, we said the same.
“You’ve got to move on quickly in this game, whether it be the highs or the lows.”