Malta faces an already qualified Greece in its penultimate Euro 2008 qualifying Group C match, four days ahead of its final qualifier against Norway in Malta next Wednesday.

Dusan Fitzel’s boys will be facing another difficult hurdle although admittedly, they now have a very remote chance of avoiding bottom place in the Group.

At present, Malta is lagging four points behind Moldova with only these two matches to go.

This evening, defending champions Greece will have nothing at stake as they have already made sure of their presence at next year’s finals in Austria and Switzerland.

However, they will still be expected to go out and get the three points in a comfortable manner and that is what worries Fitzel.

Before the Maltese left for Antalya for a training camp last Sunday, Fitzel said that he could not say what was better for Malta in today’s match, that is, whether to face Greece already qualified and perhaps playing with some new faces keen to make an impact, or facing them with the established players who will have nothing to fight for except, perhaps, prestige.

What is certain is that Fitzel will be unable to make use of four of his key players – the injured Gilbert Agius and the suspended Ivan Woods and Luke Dimech. The other is George Mallia of Birkirkara who dropped out due to heavy work commitments.

This will force the coach from the Czech Republic to make an almost complete overhaul in the midfield set-up.

As usual, Fitzel will only be announcing his formation today but one might expect him to include Steve Wellman instead of Luke Dimech at the back, thus allowing Roderick Briffa to keep to a midfield role – he is rightly being earmarked as a possible substitute for Gilbert Agius when the latter reaches veteran age (the Valletta star and national team captain is 33 years old).

However, with Ivan Woods and George Mallia out of contention, Fitzel will have to include two other players to join Briffa and Jamie Pace in this very important sector. His first choice is expected to be the more experienced Kevin Sammut. The other could be Roderick Bajada or Udo Nwoko.

In goal, Justin Haber should remain the number one while up front, Michael Mifsud and Andre Schembri should again form the striking partnership.

The Malta starting formation should not differ much from the following this evening:

Justin Haber, Kenneth Scicluna, Brian Said, Steven Wellman, Ian Azzopardi; Roderick Briffa, Jamie Pace, Kevin Sammut, Ray Bajada (Udo Nwoko), Andre Schembri, Michael Mifsud.