World champions Germany take on newest football nation Gibraltar
This really is an encounter of David versus Goliath, except we all know the former will lose, and heavily. Football world champions Germany’s population is nearly 2700 times that of UEFA’s newest nation Gibraltar, with the tiny British Mediterranean territory able to chose from a total pool of around 60 players, according to their boss Allen Bula.
Joachim Low’s men, who won the recent World Cup in Brazil, go into this match as the overwhelming 1/500 odds-on favourites for victory. Even there price of 1/12 to beat Gibraltar to nil are not very enticing.
Coral, though, have offered longer odds on the scoreline. GFA, as Gibraltar are nicknamed, have suffered two 7-0 losses this Euro 2016 qualifying campaign so far, and so you can back Germany at 7/1 to also inflict that same result on them. A highly probably 13-0 is better priced at 20/1.
Die Mannschaft, however, are missing a number of players for this encounter, with the likes of captain Bastian Schweinsteiger, Mats Hummels, Mesut Ozil, Marco Reus, Andre Schurrle and Julian Draxler all ruled out.
On top of that, besides Benedikt Howedes and Jerome Boateng, Germany’s defence have a combined total of 22 caps. You can, therefore, back both teams to score at 6/1.
For Gibraltar (200/1 to get an impossible win, and 50/1 for a draw), getting a goal will be a victory for them. While they have failed to find the net in their first three qualifiers, they came close against Republic of Ireland from a corner and had a few chances last time out in the game with Georgia.
In their first eight internationals since becoming UEFA’s 54th member, they have managed to score three times. All three of those players are in the current squad, and you can back either skipper Roy Chipolina, Kyle Casciaro or Bristol Rovers’ Jake Gosling to net last for a consolation goal at 60/1, 25/1 or 28/1 respectively.
For Germany, meanwhile, they have a whole host of names, despite their depleted side, to smash in the goals. Thomas Muller is 2/1 to score first, with the English Premier League’s only representative in this match Lukas Podolski a 3/1 chance in that same market.
Gibraltarian Goalkeeper Jordan Perez literally fights fire for a profession, but it will be an impossible task for him to beat down the flames in this struggle. That’s if he makes the line-up, as his younger understudy Jamie Robba, who replaced him as a sub against the Irish, was preferred to Perez for the game against Georgia.
But whoever goes in goal, GFA did manage to keep the first half scoreline down to 1-0 against Germany’s recent conquerors Poland, so take odds of 15/2 for that same outcome in Nuremberg again after 45 minutes.
Speaking ahead of the game, Gibraltar captain and defender Chipolina, who is a customs officer for his day job, said: “To put things in perspective, we have gone from Sunday league football to playing the world champions in 18 months.
“Sometimes I have to pinch myself. We have gone from 10 people watching us play to 35,000 people watching us play.
Cascario bluntly added: ”It’s going to be a different level, a different planet. I think, to be quite honest, they are going to score as many goals as they want.”
The two footballing nations have been placed in Group D, which also includes Scotland, with Germany odds-on favourites to win. They are, however, third after three games.
