Group C and D final games, a veritable feast in store

Two more groups will reach their denouement today, C and D. We will be starting with a choice of Vorspiese.  

The Nationalmannschaft will try and make a Kartoffelsalat out of some Irish Potatoes. 
As an alternative, Poland's ninety five percent pure spirit will try to wash away their Ukrainian neighbours borscht soup.

The entrees will offer a choice of the some fine Czech Pils lager attempting to drown some Turkish Delight or Spain trying to make a Paella of Croatia.

Before we continue, there maybe a number of readers who are confused that Ireland are playing on consecutive days. The only simple thing where Ireland is concerned are the people themselves, but thankfully a kind reader of this blog pointed me in the direction of a public information film produced to help us mere mortals understand the Byzantine workings of Irish football.

Irish football explained


Of course if you ask an Irishman, he will explain that what we have called Irish football is not the real thing, it is fact what you see in the link below. 
I apologize for the quality of the clip but you will get the idea, pay particular attention to what happens around the two minute point of the clip. 


Real Gaelic football


Did you notice how the one player got clocked and then after standing there in disbelief, absolutely belted his opponent who seemed to be just waiting for it. 
This typifies the spirit of the Irishman, a never say die attitude, an innate lack of understanding that they are beaten, which is what the Northern Irish tonight and the Southern Irish tomorrow will need in bucket loads.

The Nationalmannschaft have not impressed so far, they laboured to a 2-0 win over a poor Ukrainian team and managed a 0-0 draw against a Polish team who looked the more likely to score. 
Will there be a reaction today, even if there is, they are in for a fight against a Northern Irish side who know that as long as they don't lose by three goals or more, it should be enough to see them through.
A hard fought win for the Nationalmannschaft accompanied by a Polish demolition of Ukraine is how I see this group turning out.

In group D the most attractive game sees Croatia take on Spain, but yet again, the result unfortunately doesn't really matter, both teams will advance, it is just about from which position in the table. 
In the parallel game, the Czechs must win to advance, any other result and they will be out. The Turks have to win big to leave themselves with a theoretical chance of advancing. This at least means we will have a game where both teams will hopefully be going full throttle to win. 
This should leave lots of gaps for both teams to get in from behind, which would seem to favour the Turks because they like that.
In the end though, I think the Czechs will have too much for the Turks and any result could occur in the other game.