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England U21’s just beat their Macedonian counterparts 6-3 in a thriller at the Ricoh Arena in front of a solid 20,000+ crowd. Too much to hope that such a compelling and exhilarating fixture would be repeated by the senior side on Saturday night right? Well, even if England and Ukraine can throw together a fine soiree featuring goals, drama and perhaps a half-time magic show then it might not really matter if nobody can see it.
That’s right, the nations most prized sporting asset can only be viewed on a 15 inch screen in the family room with the kids screaming or in the corner of the dated monitor on your work laptop. Or wherever.
Say it with me… ‘boooooo’…that’s better now isn’t it. Ok, now let’s move on.

England v Ukraine

The Three Lions will play a full-strength side on their trip to the Ukraine with only Joleon Lescott and Paul Robinson unavailable. Eight wins from eight games have seen England already qualify for the finals in South Africa next year and the nation buoyed by the quality and ruthless nature of the performances. The 5-1 victory over Croatia was the latest highlight of the Capello era.

The team and manager could be forgiven for relaxing and experimenting in both their remaining games but that would not follow the Capello mantra; professionalism, discipline and execution. He will expect to win the game.

That will be no mean feat. Ukraine are unbeaten at home in the qualifying stages while conceding just the one goal. They know that victory over England, who they troubled at Wembley back in April, will leave them ahead of Croatia in the table with only Andorra to play. The bulk of the squad are prized from Dnipro, Shakhtar and Dynamo Kiev with only Liverpool’s Andrei Voronin and Bayern Munich’s Anatoliy Tymoschuk playing their football abroad. Andrei Shevchenko, formally of Chelsea and more notably AC Milan, will captain the side but is a waning power. Artem Milevskiy, a tall and creative forward, might prove to the biggest threat to England’s 100% record.
England might just lack a little motivation and comfort in Ukraine and get held 1-1.

Ireland v Italy

Now now, let’s not get too excited. Even if Ireland beat Italy at Croke Park they would still be relying on the Azzuri to drop points at home to Cyprus if they were to win the group and the (almost) assured playoff spot comes with it the intimidating challenge of France, Croatia, Portugal, Russia or some such European heavyweight down the line. Giovanni Trappatoni, manager of Italy between 2000 and 2004, will be familiar with a number of Marcello Lippi’s squad; Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso, Fabio Cannavaro, Gianluca Zambrotta and Gianluigi Buffon all featured in either the 2002 World Cup or EURO 2004 under Trap and are all still integral to the Italians ambitions next summer.

Italy have hardly looked impressive in their qualifying campaign or the Confederations Cup (the 3-0 defeat to Brazil might be as low a point in the team’s recent history) but that is rarely their way. Ireland stole a point at the Stadio San Nicola, thanks to a debatable third minute sending off and a late Robbie Keane equaliser, but have not exactly terrorized the likes of Montenegro, Cyprus and Georgia in qualifying either. Indeed neither of these teams have scored more than 2 goals in any group fixture.

Two Italian coaches. One point suiting both teams. One likely result. 0-0 draw.

Other fixtures

This is the sharp end of qualifying and there are several key games across Europe that will define the immediate futures and holiday plans for some of continent’s finest.

Denmark host Sweden with victory guaranteeing the Danes passage to South Africa while the Swedes need a point to hold off the charging Portuguese. They play Hungary at home later in the evening knowing anything but a win will likely see Ronaldo et al working on their tans rather than skills next year.

Greece and Latvia meet for a chance to be the probable playoff representatives from Group 2, Poland travel to the Czech Republic in a virtual knockout game in Group 3 and Germany and Russia battle for automatic qualification from Group 4.

Screw it, I might as well just delineate the entire picture by predicting every single result . I can do that. I can! Don’t believe me? Hah! Here we go…

Denmark 1-1 Sweden
Portugal 2-1 Hungary
Luxembourg 0-3 Switzerland
Israel 2-0 Moldova
Greece 2-1 Latvia
Slovakia 2-2 Slovenia
Czech Republic 2-1 Poland
Finland 0-0 Wales
Russia 1-1 Germany
Liechtenstein 1-1 Azerbaijan
Estonia 1-3 Bosnia-Hercegovina
Belgium 1-2 Turkey
Armenia 0-5 Spain
Belarus 2-1 Kazakhstan
Serbia 1-0 Romania
Austria 2-1 Lithuania
France 4-0 Faroe Islands
Montenegro 0-0 Georgia
Cyprus 0-1 Bulgaria
Or something like that.