Yes indeed, the first semi-final is tonight at 6.30pm (BST), with Germany and Finland meeting at Preston's Deepdale stadium.
Things in Finland's favour: I've yet to see an English person enter a ground and support Germany in their previous three games. In fact they leant their accents to some stern "I-tal-ia!" chanting last week, clapped every German injury, and cheered every booking or cock-up. Oh and they have no concept of etiquette and will actually try and win.
Things in Germany'- there's not really much point in going on, here, is there?
No matter how well Finland have done so far, and their run even through the qualifiers has been remarkable, you have to pick Germany to be the ones to undo all that tonight.
They've barely got out of third gear all week, and unless that's because they can't [unlikely], they might fall behind to an early attack as the Danes did, but they'll just crank up the gears and bury Finland in that case.
I'd love to see the Finns cause the upset of the century, because the Germans have almost put me to sleep on a couple of occasions with their lack of creativity, but I think we might be asking a little too much there.
Against my better judgement I am going to be betting on the game, but I'll save my efforts for some in-play punting, methinks.
And remember folks, those Fantasy Euro 2005 teams need to be updated before kick-off tonight to be valid for the two semi-finals - hop to it.
