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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.

It’s almost as if the goons at FIFA knew the footballing calendar would spurt out the bothersome distraction of World Cup Qualifying fixtures in light of the raging winds of disciplinary judgements handed out this week to English clubs. One former Milan coach has his hands tied at Stamford Bridge but another has the freedom of Wembley stadium to experiment and prepare.

England v Slovenia

England play Croatia in midweek with a victory securing them a place at the World Cup in South Africa next summer. The fodder for their tactical and personnel research comes in the form of Slovenia, themselves vying for a spot at the big show with Poland their opponents on Wednesday night. Friendlies are notoriously difficult to predict due to their commonly disheartening combination of substitutions and player apathy alleviating any real competitiveness from the fixture. But this isn’t Eriksson or McClaren’s team anymore and under Capello England have been strong at home and have suffered defeat only in France and Spain.

The biggest threat to the national team’s positive preparation will likely come in the form of forward Millivoje Novakovic, a regular scorer since his debut three years ago, Robert Koren, of West Brom ‘fame’ and maybe also Rene Krhin, a young, uncapped playmaker plying his trade for Inter Milan. England are struggling for bodies at centre-half and have a decision to make in goal with David James out of the squad; the opportunity is there for Robert Green to become the side’s no.1 for the foreseeable future.

England should not be to heavily troubled by a side over 40 places below them in the FIFA rankings and beat neighbours and group 3 rivals Slovakia 4-0 back in March. England to cruise to a 2-0 win.

Scotland v Macedonia

In the slightly more meaningful division of the weekend’s games, Scotland host upstarts Macedonia in a crucial group 9 fixture that will probably determine whether they follow the current trend of Scottish football teams (despairingly bad and forced to whine about referees to divert attention from it) or get the chance to get beaten in the playoffs for World Cup in a couple of months. Needless to say, I’m not buying what George Burley is selling.

The Scots have 7 points from 6 games, one more than Norway and behind Macedonia on goal difference with the pair of adversaries due to meet in the final round of games on Wednesday. Scotland play the Dutch at Hampden Park that night. See, not a lot to like there.

In reality it seems Burley’s boys will have to beat Macedonia to have a chance of securing second place but, with goals hard to come by (just 4 so far in their 6 games) and a defeat in the first fixture between the two last year, it’s hard to be overly optimistic. Scotland’s core players, the likes of James McFadden, Darren Fletcher and the returning David Weir, will have to shoulder the responsibility and lift the crowd but in this depreciating pundit’s opinion, a disappointing 1-1 draw barely keeps their hopes slimly swimming above water for a few days.

By they way, has there been a world-class player in the Scottish ranks since the eighties?

Poland v Northern Ireland

Although Ireland are also in action on Saturday, it’s their northern counterparts that take the limelight this weekend. Successive victories over San Marino, Poland and Slovenia this year have propelled Nigel Worthington’s team to second in their group and within touching distance of their first finals since 1986.

Northern Ireland have to travel to Poland this weekend and, with games against Slovakia and the Czech Republic looming, need a good result to have any chance of automatic qualification. The Irish were the better team when they beat Poland at Windsor Park but the Poles are extremely tough at home (unbeaten in a competitive fixture sine 2006, Northern Ireland have only beaten Liechtenstein and San Marino away from Windsor Park in that same period) and will be favourites.

David Healy, so often the hero, can now look to team mates Kyle Lafferty and Martin Paterson for support however it’s the defence that will need to be the key performers if they are to resist a prolific Polish attack (they scored 10 in their last qualifier) and keep the African dream alive. Northern Ireland to be spirited but Poland to edge it 1-0.