Cometh the hour...

As Sweden head home with nothing but some nasty scabs and a book of carpet samples to show for their Euro 2008 exertions, the tournament is about to move up a gear...

Tonight is truly D-Day for the Germans. After all the larking around in the group stages, the hens have finally come home to roost, the cat's in his cradle and the shit is about the hit the fan. We've had the comedy gaffs from Jens Lehmann, the hissy fits from Schweinsteiger and the mind-numbing misses from Lopez. The time for that is over boys- total football is about to begin. The time for clichés is over.

This is very similar to an England match- Germany have been pretty stagnant so far and they finally have to punch above their weight. Kind of like in Terminator II where Arnie faces loads of shit baddies before Robert Patrick finally comes and mangles him. It's also a bit of a Hamlet-like scenario with Cristiano Ronaldo as the wicked Uncle and Phil Scolari as Queen Gertrude. Stay with me on this...

I call upon all the remaining Germany-haters in the UK to back your Saxon homeboys on this one. If Portugal win, Cristiano won' t thank you for it. He'll bugger off to Madrid, probably wounding a few baby deer on the way, and salting the earth around his Cheshire home so that not only a seedling will grow for centuries.

This is football. It's not about patriotism. It's about wooden seats, pies, half-time oranges, and crap lager. None of those things exist in Portugal. Nevertheless their cork industry is very good and I applaude them for that...