The world champions host Ukraine here in the capital on Saturday before playing away to Georgia the following Wednesday.

Perrotta suffered a sprained left ankle and pulled his right hamstring after he went in for a tackle with Massimo Oddo in Wednesday's training session at the Azzurri's training camp in Coverciano, Florence.

"When he fell to the ground after the tackle, he sprained his ankle but also overstretched his right hamstring," said Italy medic Andrea Ferretti.

"We will evaluate his condition tomorrow or the day after. The fear is that he has torn his hamstring."

A tireless worker and tenacious tackler, Perrotta was one of Italy's unsung heroes in their triumphant World Cup campaign.

Left-back Fabio Grosso, scorer of the winning penalty-kick in the World Cup final shoot-out against France, has already been ruled out of both qualifiers after failing to recover from a right thigh strain.

Italy are desperate for positive results from their next two Group B matches having taken just one point from their first two games against Lithuania and France.

The 2008 European championships will be held jointly by Switzerland and Austria.