Lithuanian forward Deivydas Matulevicius will be a danger man for England
Instead, he seems happy - along with 1,500 Lithuania fans who immediately snapped up their Wembley allocation - just to be at the game.
If only the Lithuanian supporters had had the same enthusiasm about showing up 15 years ago instead of turning the first visit ever by a team from their country into a major diplomatic incident.
Football League chief executive Shaun Harvey was managing director of Bradford City at the time when the Yorkshire club was drawn against FC Atlantis of Klaipeda in the 2000 InterToto Cup. “We could not believe how excited they were about a game against Bradford City,” he recalled yesterday.
“Their fans even chartered an Aeroflot plane specifically to come to the game.
“The trouble was, there were 54 fans on the plane coming out to the game - only 34 got back on it afterwards.
“Pretty soon I was fielding calls from the Home Office and police.
“Needless to say there was a significant inquiry led as to what had happened to the fans who had not made the journey back. I’m not sure if they ever caught up with them. Perhaps some of them will be at Wembley tonight!” Even the first match between the teams in Lithuania had been dogged with problems.
“The plane we chartered blew an engine leaving Luton Airport to come to Leeds-Bradford,” Harvey said.
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“It left me with a full squad of players, 20 fans, assorted members of the media and two policemen trying to find an aeroplane to take us all to a military airport in Klaipeda.
“Initially, the only one we could find had a propeller and was only big enough to take the players, so off they went.
“Then a second plane finally arrived five hours later. It was a Swiss Air private airplane and the reason it had been delayed was that it had been used by the family of Aga Khan earlier that day.
“The fans got on board to see sofas spread along the fuselage and a proper bar area. The wine was like something in a Michelin-starred restaurant. In an instant it went from a disaster to the best European trip ever.”
Undoubtedly, an impossible win tonight would make this Lithuania’s “best trip ever”. Even a point would match the 1-1 draw with Italy just two months after they lifted the 2006 World Cup.
Rangers defender Marius Zaliukas was on the bench that day and recalled: “It was a really special game. Everybody expected us to lose 5-0 but at the end everybody was applauding us.
“You cannot go to a game and think you are going to lose. You have got to go out believing you can win.
“The first 15 minutes are going to be very important and we are going to want to keep them quiet and hopefully make the crowd quiet. Every minute they don’t score will give us more confidence.”
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