England plays the Czech Republic in a friendly today at 3pm ET/8pm UK time. The game will be shown live on Fox Soccer Channel for U.S. viewers, while U.K. viewers can find the match on Setanta Sports.

It should be interesting to see how Fabio Capello’s side does at Wembley on a night when Emile Heskey may get a chance to start up front, John Terry returns as captain and 30,000 seats are still unsold.

If you’ll be watching – or have watched – today’s matches, please share your thoughts, insight, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

Tonight sees the first dual clash with Czech Republic playing Turkey whilst Switzerland host Portugal. With Portugal through as Group Winners, all eyes will be on Geneva. We could potentially have a first in Group qualification with the fact that should tonight’s game end in a draw, we will go straight into a penalty shoot out to decide who finishes runners up in the group. I hope we don’t come to that and the game is completely decided before the final whistle is blown.

It’s looking more and more likely that the Czechs will revert to playing Koller and Baros together up front. This tournament has really shown just how much quality they’ve lost from midfield with the retirements of Nedved, Berger, Smicer, Poborsky and the injury to Rosicky. They’ve played a game that is based on midfielders bursting forward to link up with the front man, but the quality simply hasn’t been there.

Turkey also may look to starting the game with the team that finished the 2-1 victory that eliminated the Swiss as coach Fatih Terim looks to guide the Turks through. He made a tactically brilliant change at half time to swing the game in their favour and Terim has often been underrated as a coach, the disappointing spell as coach of AC Milan perhaps diluting his achievements at Fiorentina and Galatasaray and his first stint as national coach. 

Turkey certainly looked back to their best in the second half against the Swiss and this game is make or break for both coaches. I’m going to go for a 1-0 win for the Czech Republic tonight, which will then lead them to a potential clash with Germany in the Quarter Finals.

Tonight’s other game will probably gives us a chance to see the players on the fringes of the Portuguese squad, with Queresma, Almeida and Nani expected to start. Switzerland will be playing for pride tonight but know that their opponents will have several players trying to prove to Phil Scolari that they deserve a chance of being in his first choice XI. Whilst it would be nice for the Swiss to get anything out of this, I can’t see them beating Portugal and think it could be a 3-0 defeat for the Swiss.   

I’ve finally had a chance to catch up on watching some of the Euro 2008 matches I missed. The jet lag hit me later in the week, so I found myself watching many of the games this week at weird hours on DVR.The one thing about football is that it can be so subjective. Earlier in the week, I found myself watching the 1-0 Croatia win against Austria game on the giant screen TV at the FanZone in Zurich. To me, Croatia looked like a very hard working team in the first half who were playing some wonderful football. Especially impressive was Ivica Olic, the Croat striker who plays for Hamburg, who was a workhouse throughout the game putting in an incredible performance. If ever there was a player who would do well in the Premier League, Olic is it.In their game against Austria, Croatia changed their tactics in the second half, which allowed Austria to press forward more. And it was the Austrians who impressed me, putting to bed all the fears about them being the worst team in the tournament.So I was surprised when I returned to the States and was hearing and reading the comments about Croatia looking weak in their first match. Against Germany, the Croats showed their true strength in their 2-1 win and it’s now Germany — many people’s favorites to win Euro 2008 — who risk getting knocked out of the tournament depending what happens in their final match against Austria.The other thing I found surprising when I returned to the States was the perception among many that this has been a boring tournament thus far. Sure, it’s easier to enjoy the atmosphere and games when you’re experiencing them in Switzerland, but still, the tournament to me has been one of the most exciting football events in quite some time, even more so than World Cup 2006. The France against Romania nil-nil match was horrible, but aside from that, I’ve enjoyed all of the other matches.Speaking of Romania, their 1-1 draw against Italy on Friday was a brilliant match to watch. So much goalmouth action with balls hitting the post or goalkeepers pulling off incredible saves. Buffon’s penalty save, too, was amazing to watch. Romania could have easily won the match in the first half, while Italy showed in this game their masterful technical touches — beautiful flicks, excellent ball control, deft passes and wonderful creativity — something which is desperately lacking in the Premier League and on the England national team.Italy, though, has to feel cheated by the goal that was ruled offside. On replay, it’s clear that the goal should have counted. But when I watched it in real-time, it looked to me to be offside, so I empathize why the referee and assistant referee thought the whistle should have been blown for offside.I’ve been writing about how impressed I’ve been about Holland since Monday and they completely blew me away again on Friday with their 4-1 win against France. In fairness, the French are to blame for this scoreline as they had plenty of chances to score. Just as in the match against Italy, the Dutch took full advantage of the chances they had with their clinical finishing.While Holland and Croatia continue to impress, Portugal can be added to that list. In their first game against Turkey, I thought the Portugese looked very entertaining with Pepe, especially, being a revelation. Portugal also looked breathtaking in the 3-1 win over Czech Republic. So far this tournament, the Czechs have done very little to impress me.For all of the bad press Austria got from the pundits and their own fans before the tournament started, I’ve been more impressed by the Austrians than Switzerland. Austria deserved to get the 1-1 draw against Poland earlier this week, and the penalty decision by Howard Webb, I believe, was a correct one.Speaking of Switzerland, the national team was dealt a cruel blow when Alex Frei was injured in their 0-1 loss to Czech Republic. But in the Swiss 2-1 loss to Turkey, it was Turkey’s Arda Turan who was the relevation. The Galatasaray winger scored two beautiful goals. The first, a beautifully taken header, and the second was an amazing shot in the last minute of the game, which will be one of the goals of the tournament.The one group I haven’t had a chance to watch so far this tournament is Group D because I was traveling throughout the day on Tuesday and missed Spain‘s demolition of Russia and the entertaining game between Sweden and Greece. I’m looking forward to seeing those matches on Saturday.

After one set of games, we now have the groups beginning to take shape and we move into the second phase of matches. Everyone who wins in this particular round knows that they still have a chance of qualifying or indeed making sure that they have qualified for the Quarter Finals.

The first of tonight’s matches sees the Czech Republic play Portugal, the winner definitely through to the next round. Looking at both sides first games, Portugal will be strong favourites to win tonight and if they play anywhere near as well as they did Saturday night, then they’ll over-run the Czechs. Yet the Czechs will also know that they were fairly fortunate against a very resolute Swiss team and will be looking to give a far better account to themselves than they did.

They looked quite poor up-front though and the strikers will need to offer a lot more for them to have any chance of taking anything from the game. I’m going for a 3-1 Portugal win in this match.

The second game features Switzerland v Turkey. Both teams need to win to have any chance of having a strong chance of qualification so we should see an open game. Switzerland were a lot better than I thought they would be in the first game but couldn’t finish. With Yakin coming in for the injured Frei, they’ll have clever player pushing them forward. Turkey looked shell shocked on Saturday, they never got into the game and were quiet flattered by a 2-0 score line.

I expected a lot more from them than they showed, which really surprised me. Whilst they’re not the strongest Turkish side of recent years, Portugal made them look very ordinary and they’ll be up for showing everyone a lot more. I think the home support will be crucial tonight and I’m going to plump for a 1-0 win to Switzerland.

The opening match of Euro 2008 has finished with Czech Republic winning one-nil against Switzerland in Basel. Here are some statistics from the match:Czech Republic 1. Petr Cech    11.26 (top speed; kph)    3840 (distance; metres)2. Zdenek Grygera    22.68    96743. Jan Polak    22.05    110094. Tomas Galasek    20.65    96106. Marek Jankulovski    23.67    97157. Libor Sionko    22.05    105559. Jan Koller    20.96    599314. David Jarolim    20.59    1058020. Jaroslav Plasil    24.32    1123921. Tomas Ujfalusi    22.68    901422. David Rozehnal    20.28    94385. Radoslav Kovac    13.55    73010. Vaclav Sverkos    23.82    439011. Stanislav Vlcek    24.46    1307Switzerland    1. Diego Benaglio    12.41 (top speed; kph)    5347 (distance; metres)3. Ludovic Magnin    23.20    89244. Philippe Senderos    18.94    92045. Stephan Lichtsteiner    21.88    80768. Gokhan Inler    22.52    97309. Alexander Frei    22.71    475011. Marco Streller    20.84    977815. Gelson Fernandes    21.67    1121216. Tranquillo Barnetta    19.15    971519. Valon Behrami    22.52    983820. Patrick Muller    18.56    934210. Hakin Yakin    20.79    505112. Eren Derdiyok    11.80    107122. Johann Vonlanthen    22.35    2000Powered by Castrolindex.com

Czech Republic captain Tomas Rosicky has announced that he will not be taking part in next month’s European Championships due to a recurring knee injury.

Rosicky held a news conference to announce the decision. “I’m not capable of starting the European Championships. My injury requires an operation. I will go (for it) at the start of next week. I’m maybe enduring the worst period in my career. I lost out on most of the season with Arsenal. I was really looking forward to the championships.”

Rosicky, 27, was cleared by Arsenal to recover in his homeland in mid-April and he had declared an improvement in his health at the end of the month. Speculation has mounted that Czech manger Karel Bruckner would be forced to try and tempt Juventus midfielder Pavel Nedved to return to the national team. Nedved retired from international football soon after the 2006 World Cup.

“The ball is now with Pavel,” commented Czech Football Federation spokesman Lukas Tucek. “He must decide if he wants to return.”

Reading’s Marek Matejovsky, Osasuna’s Jaroslav Plasil or Hamburg’s David Jarolim are other options for the key playmaker role should Nedved not return.