Match 04 - Germany v Poland / Dan Fitch / 07 June 2008 / Leave a comment

This is what's great about international football - the luck of the draw pairing together two nations with the sort of shared history, that guarantees a grudge match.

Some would say that enough years have passed for Germany to be forgiven past ills and everyone should just live and let live. These people clearly haven't needed to travel on the Hammersmith and City line between Whitechapel and Plaistow in the last week.

The Germans will be glad that the World War II bomb found at Bromley-by-Bow station, didn't go off, especially as there's so many Poles now living in East London.

If the discovery of this bomb could be considered unlucky for the Germans, their draw at Euro 2008 could not. Once again Germany have defined the word 'jammy', in being given a straight road through to the semi-finals.

Not only that, but they are more or less playing at home. Only a Russian linesman could prevent Michael Ballack getting his hands on the trophy. Well, either that or a centre back falling over as he takes a vital penalty kick, but Germans don't tend to do that.

The Polish have been testing the Germans legendary sense of humour, with some good natured joshing this week. Their newspaper Super Express depicted the Polish coach Leo Beenhakker, clutching the decapitated heads of Michael Ballack and Joachim Low alongside the headline "Leo, give us their heads". I'm just surprised that Piers Morgan was able to get another editorial job, after the problems he had at The Mirror.

This whole incident has caused something of a furore, with Beenhakker apologising to the Germans. As the Dutch coach didn't actually rip off the heads of the German manager and captain with his bare hands, before posing for a tabloid snap, I'm not sure why he felt the apology necessary.

Personally I'm more worried about where I'm going to find a plumber, should my U-Bend get blocked during the Germany and Poland clash. The Polish have never beaten Germany and Britain's service industry will be in chaos come Monday morning, should Poland pull off an unlikely win.

If the German team can be guaranteed a frosty reception from the Polish crowd, their strike-force of Klose and Podolski can expect more stick than most. Both are Polish born, but elected to play for the country in which they play their football and one wonders what sort of team Poland would be with them in their arsenal.

Klose has 39 goals from 75 games and is one of my bets to be top scorer at [10.5]. Alongside him will be either Podolski (25 goals from 47 games) or Mario Gomez (6 goals from 10 games). With Ballack and Schweinsteiger both capable of goals from midfield, few teams have as much firepower as the Germans.

Germany's qualifying matches averaged at 3.5 goals per game, though they did rather distort things with a 13-0 victory over San Marino. Still, a healthy 58% of their games featured more than 2.5 goals, as they finished second in the group to the Czechs.

Only one of Germany's group games featured three goals or more during Euro 2004, as they failed to qualify for the knockout stages. Euro 2000 was even worse, as only a 3-0 defeat by Portugal broke 2.5. But these were bad times for Germany and their home World Cup in 2006 was more fruitful. They twice breached 2.5 goals from their group matches, as they averaged 3.3 goals per game.

Poland were in the same group as Germany in 2006 and only managed to break 2.5 once, beating Costa Rica 2-1. In qualifying for Euro 2008, the Polish averaged 2.6 goals per game, with 50% of these games featuring more than 2.5 goals.

The attacking options that Germany have at their disposal make over 2.5 goals the favourite at [1.86], with unders at [2.14]. Poland will really be up for this and are likely to pack the midfield. Having qualified for the last two World Cups, only to disappoint in the finals, Poland will be cautious and try to scrape their way through. I'll be backing unders here, which at the very least has trading potential.

Tags: Germany, Leo Beenhakker, Poland