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20 min: BRILLIANT GOAL!!! Germany 0-1 Italy. Could this be the opening salvo in a classic ding-dong battle? Germany have had all the play, but Italy have just had two attempts, and their third counts! Cassano twists and turns magnificently down the left, escaping from Boateng and Khedira with one marvellous twiddle, then whipping a cross over the six-yard area, where Balotelli powers home a header. That was top class. This is on!

18 min: Italy show upfield properly for the first time, Montolivo dropping a shoulder as he cuts inside from the left, and lashing a low shot towards the bottom left. Neuer is right behind the effort. And then, less than a minute later, Cassano unleashes a superb strike from 20 yards, level with the left-hand post but aiming for the bottom right. Neuer catches the fizzing ball cleanly, which is just as well because Balotelli was buzzing around in the hope of latching onto a rebound.

15 min: Bonucci blasts a clearance down the inside-left channel, but only onto the back of Di Rossi. The rebound nearly sets Gomez clear into the Italian half, but the striker is rocking back on his heels and can't take advantage. "This Gomez chappie - he's Serginho reborn isn't he?" wonders Gary Naylor. Shh, Naylor, you'll rattle Bobbie Smyth's cage!

12 min: Again Italy nearly fall behind, and again it's Buffon at fault. Kroos swings in a low cross from the right. Buffon, on the edge of his six-yard box, parries low, but only straight at Barzagli, the ball clanking off the defender's shins and inches wide of the right-hand post. Dear lord. From the corner, Kroos has a thrash from the inside-right position, Buffon regaining some moral credit by diving at full length to stop that one before it flew into the net. Germany are all over Italy, who look very nervous.

11 min: Germany amuse themselves with a bit of Bundestikiundtaka. Eventually Khedira blooters the ball goalwards, harmlessly, from 35 yards. That was like watching Spain and Portugal at the same time.

8 min: Another corner for Germany, this time won down the right. No drama from this one. The Germans have settled much better than their opponents. "Nice seeing football players actually run for a change, as opposed to the genteel plodding of England-Italy or Spain-anyone," opines Hubert O'Hearn. "Those games had all the pace of elderly men taking up jogging after a double knee transplant."

5 min: Germany were so close to taking the lead. The ball's swung in from a left-hand corner, and lands at the feet of Hummels, six yards out, Buffon having flapped. Hummels can't connect properly, though, the ball clanking off his knee, and Pirlo is on Italy's right-hand post to hack clear.

4 min: Montolivo is this close to finding Balotelli down the inside-right channel with a sliderule pass, but Neuer is out quickly to snaffle. The National Stadium in Warsaw is bouncing. Let's hope it stays this way, for quite a few stadiums have fallen silent during this tournament.

2 min: Not too much to report yet. Germany have had a wee sniff down the Italian left wing, before swinging an aimless ball high across the area. And that's about it. "Well done for having the integrity to call out the Emperor's hairy balls and saggy bottom and not get seduced by the puzzling media talk about 2012's dazzling footballing gown of excellence," writes Jason Isaacs. "It's been dull as dishwater and yet I keep hearing people say how thrilling it's been. Even as someone who doesn't follow any of the Euro teams, there's usually still great football on display but this is just boring. I shudder at the thought of eight more crap teams in four years time."

31 seconds: Cassano pelts down the left, but checks and eventually loses the ball. So much for the Blue Spain. Oh Italy!

And we're off! Super Mario gets the ball rolling. After 13 seconds, they've not lost the ball, but have made no effort whatsoever to cross the halfway line. They're the Blue Spain!

But first the Captain's Messages. Buffon and Phillipp Lahm tell everyone not to be stupid bigoted buggers. Hear hear to that. The teams shake hands. We'll be off in a minute. "When erstwhile Guardian scribe Jonathan Wilson titled his magnificent opus Inverting the Pyramid, I doubt he realised that he was envisaging Euro 2012," begins Phil Sawyer. "A tournament that started in an unexpectedly entertaining swathe of attacking football that has gradually narrowed into a tense, cautious, display of risk free margins. Oh, capricious fate, that not only should we now be looking on the German and Italian teams to raise us from this morass but that they've been playing a brand of football that could genuinely do it. The world has finally gone mad." Erstwhile? Don't tell me he's been turfed out for claiming Spain have entered the pantheon of greatness? Oh Wilson! Say it ain't so!

Waiting in the tunnel, the keepers Manuel Neuer and Gianluigi Buffon embrace, while Mario Balotelli and Jerome Boateng crack wise, and then the teams take to the field! Germany are in their classic white-and-black strip, Italy in their paying-no-heed-to-the-flag blue. The players line up, and it's time for the Special Songs. Germany pelt out the Song of Germany, the tune written by an Austrian. Italy had previously entertained themselves with a hearty holler of the Song of the Italians, the writing of which was at least kept in house, but then tunesmith Michele Novaro is no Joseph Haydn, no matter how jaunty this particular number is. "After 20 years of Schumi, the Italian national anthem could just as well be the German one," notes Dirk Pilat. "Or the other way around." Anyway, there's a fine atmosphere in Warsaw. This is ON!

Referee: Stephane Lannoy (France)

Italy recall Giorgio Chiellini, back from a thigh injury: Buffon, Balzaretti, Barzagli, Bonucci, Chiellini, Pirlo, Marchisio, Montolivo, De Rossi, Balotelli, Cassano.
Subs: Sirigu, Ogbonna, Thiago Motta, Abate, Di Natale, Giaccherini, Borini, Giovinco, Diamanti, Nocerino, De Sanctis.

Germany recall Lukas Podolski, Mario Gomez and Toni Kroos: Neuer, Boateng, Hummels, Badstuber, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Khedira, Kroos, Ozil, Podolski, Gomez.
Subs: Wiese, Gundogan, Schmelzer, Howedes, Schurrle, Klose, Muller, Bender, Mertesacker, Gotze, Reus, Zieler.

Kick off: 7.45pm BST, 8.45pm CEST (local time in Warsaw).

History very much on Italy's side, then. But history was on France's side against Spain at the weekend too, and look what happened there. Recent form strongly favours Joachim Low's superb team: their brand of Das Bundestikiundtaka has won them 15 competitive games on the bounce, breaking a record previously held jointly by Spain, France and Holland. The Italians, meanwhile, might have swaggered around Mr Roy's Special Traffic Cone Set the other day, but they've only won one of their last seven matches in regulation time. And that was against Ireland, who, well, y'know. But with Andrea Pirlo in majestic form - and Germany unlikely to be forgetting that competitive record any time soon - they're in with a chance alright. So there's no reason why this can't be a classic. Please let this be a classic. Please.

And Italy's big competitive wins have been BIG competitive wins. First up was the famous 4-3 victory in the sweltering semi-final of the 1970 World Cup, Gigi Riva and Gianni Rivera trumping the extra-time heroics of Gerd Muller and a shoulder-knacked Franz Beckenbauer. Then came the 1982 World Cup final, Marco Tardelli and all that. And then came the 2006 World Cup semi-final, Marco Tardelli Fabio Grosso and all that.

So, to those past meetings, and the Germans and the Italians have served up some classic action over the years. None of it has been to the satisfaction of Die Mannschaft, who have never won a competitive fixture against the Azzurri. They've played seven times in World Cups and European Championships, and Italy have four wins and three draws. The Italians even have the edge in friendly competition, winning 14 of 30 games, compared to Germany's seven.

BUT LET US EMBRACE OPTIMISM!!! IT'S NOT TOO LATE!!! If Germany and Italy pull a minor classic out of the bag here - and past meetings suggest there's no reason they won't - and then we get a half-decent final, history might be kind to Euro 2012! Because over-intellectualising Spain's tiki-totalitarianism isn't going to be enough when you try to big this up in ten years' time, I can tell you that for nothing.

Because, let's be brutally honest with ourselves, Euro 2012 has been a thundering disappointment. Average group stages; awful, predictable knockout games; stifling tactics. Good luck to you, dear ol' reader pal o' mine, if you've gleaned some entertainment out of it, but plenty of us have been less fortunate. Three weeks we've given over to this. And the bleeding from the eyes!

Right, we've only got two games to save a football tournament here. Los geht's Deutschland! Forza Italia! Read More

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