Germany play Greece in the second quarter-final of Euro 2012 in a game that holds particular interest for England fans as they will face the winner here if they overcome Italy on Sunday night. Paddy Power columnist Robbie Fowler believes Germany are certainties to win.
This might sound silly seeing as it’s the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 – but this could be Germany’s easiest game so far.
They came through three tough Group B games against Portugal, Holland and Denmark with flying colours and are the only unbeaten side left in the competition. Germany, as we’ve come to expect, have gone about the job brilliantly and deserve to be strong favourites here.
It’s very simple, the further they go in tournaments, the better they get.
To be fair to Greece though, they have exceeded everybody’s expectations in the competition.
They drew 1-1 against Poland in the opening game after having a man sent off and did well to come back and share the points. You can’t argue with their 1-0 win over Russia it was a great result for them to get through Group A.
This is a big step up in class though against a German side who have not performed spectacularly but just always get the job done. I can’t see Greece causing them too many problems especially with midfielder Giorgos Karagounis missing.
He’s a big player for them. It’s going to be tough for Greece to contain a German side who are used to taking the lead and getting a result from there. They won’t go all out attack, everyone will just keep working for the team and their play-makers will keep making chances for Gomez or Klose or whoever plays up front.
They mightn’t have a prolific goalscorer upfront as such but they have goal-scoring threats all over the pitch with Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mesut Ozil pulling the strings.
Their defence is strong too – I just can’t see where the Greek goal-threat will come from.
For me it’s Germany to win 2-0 with Gomez to score at anytime during the match.
