Ukraine v Poland PreviewUkraine played Northern I in their second game of the group stages and lost the game just like they lost their first game by 0-2, they have 0 points in their two games and are nearly on the brink of exit from the tournament.
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Defensive frailties were exposed in the first game, but now the focus is on attack with Mario Goetze, Thomas Mueller, Mesut Ozil and Julian Draxler all scoreless so far.
With Goetze having been withdrawn after 66 minutes against Poland in Paris, Gomez could be handed his first start of the tournament in place of the under-performing Bayern forward. “Sometimes you’re the dog, sometimes you’re the tree”, Goetze said Sunday at the team’s tournament base.
And while his lack of goals might come as a surprise on this stage, he insists he should be judged on his all-round game.
I fancy Poland to overcome a deeply demoralized Ukrainian outfit in this one; however, the fact that five of these sides’ last seven encounters have seen both teams score suggests backing a Poland win with goals for both teams is good value at 7/2 with +2.5 goals trading 6/5. “We are going out to win, but at the same time we must try not to lose”. “But it has been in the media that I am going and I have not heard anybody utter any discordant notes about it. I don’t think there’s anybody looking to turn this into a political event”.
“It’s not about me, it’s never been about me”, he said. “We’ve looked at bits and pieces of them without trying to scare ourselves”.
“I will ask him to exchange shirts with him but I think many of my colleagues will have the same idea”.
The system that works out which of the third-placed teams faces who is a complicated one based on which groups the teams come from, but trust us – it’s highly likely to be France.
The permutations state that even a defeat for Northern Ireland today will see them into the next round; such is the format of the competition.
“He said he’ll have a chat with me in due course, depending on how far we go in the tournament to decide when we’ll go back in”. Other than that, I’m not sure what we can offer you as Brazilians.
Also, Germany defender Jerome Boateng trained normally with the rest of the squad at the Camille Fournier Stadium on Sunday after recovering from a bruised hip.
O’Neill’s and a friend went to the last European Championships in Poland and Ukraine to cast an eye over Portugal and Russian Federation, who would be among Northern Ireland’s opponents in their qualifying group for the 2014 World Cup. The Northern Irish are guaranteed of at least third place and would secure qualification with a victory over Germany at the Parc des Princes. We’re aware of recent games and believe there are weaknesses in the German team.
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If the world champions beat Northern Ireland they will top the group regardless of Poland’s result.
