Malta will be back in action this evening when they face Bosni-Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

National coach Dusan Fitzel is expected to make some changes from the team that went down to Norway 4-0 last Saturday.

Defenders Luke Dimech and Rodrick Briffa are expected back after serving their suspension.

A doubtful starter is Marsaxlokk midfielder Kevin Sammut who was injured against Norway, with Sliema striker Ivan Woods ready to fill his gap.

This will be the fourth encounter between the two countries with malta winning 2-1 at Ta’ Qali in 1999, with Bosnia-Herzegovina winning two years later in Sarajevo.

In the match played in Malta from this group, Bosnia-Herzegovina obtained an impressive 5-2 win, despite Malta’s overall good performance.

Meanwhile in other qualifiers, three-time winners Germany can go five points clear in Group D, while World Cup winners Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, France and defending champions Greece are all well positioned to finish in the top two spots in their groups and advance.

England is the exception. They are fourth in Group E and likely to stay there even if they win at Estonia.

With David Beckham playing his first competitive game for England since last year’s World Cup, coach Steve McClaren’s team is at least three points adrift of the top three teams.

Leader Croatia, who are unbeaten in 32 competitive games at home, host third-place Russia and second-place Israel will be confident of winning at Andorra, which is last after losing all six games.

Meanwhile, Germany coach Joachim Loew wants one more big effort from his players to beat Slovakia in Hamburg at the end of a long season.

After starting slowly, World Cup finalists France and Italy have edged ahead of Ukraine and Scotland in Group B.

France play Georgia at home while Italy, who are two points behind France but a point ahead of Ukraine and Scotland, hope to make it five victories in a row by winning at Lithuania.

Greece moved top of Group C by beating Hungary 2-0 on Saturday and Turkey losing 3-2 at Bosnia-Herzegovina. Greece can go five points clear of Turkey by beating Moldova at home.

Qualification from Group F has been complicated by referee Herbert Fandel’s decision to abandon Saturday’s game between Denmark and Sweden.

Fandel was attacked by a Danish fan in Copenhagen after sending off Denmark midfielder Christian Poulsen and awarding Sweden a penalty in the 89th minute with the score at 3-3.

UEFA will decide both the result and Denmark’s punishment on Friday, with the likelihood that Sweden will be awarded a 3-0 victory. Leader Northern Ireland is idle Wednesday, while Sweden hosts Iceland, Spain visits Liechtenstein and Denmark goes to Latvia.

Group A leaders Poland will be eight points clear if they win at Armenia on because Portugal and Serbia don’t have a game. But Poland will have played two more games than both its rivals.

The Netherlands don’t play until September and will likely be three points behind Romania after today, but will have played a game less than Romania and Bulgaria.

Having already won 2-1 at Slovenia on Saturday, Romania can gain back-to-back wins today. Bulgaria can draw level with the Netherlands by beating Belarus at home.