Today is the final day of the Interlull matces which began last Friday, and we pick out a handful of matches in Europe that may be of interest. We’ll be back later today with previews of a couple Americas-based matches with later starting times.

France-Croatia in Saint-Denis; Lithuania-Spain in Kaunas; Netherlands-Hungary in Amsterdam (all on ESPN3.com starting at 2:30pmET): A choice of three intra-European matchups for you.

Lithuania-Spain and Netherlands-Hungary are both Euro2012 qualifiers, featuring the two finalists of WC2010 and probable favorites for next summer’s tournament in Poland/Ukraine. Spain is coming off a closer-than-expected 2-1 home win over the Czech Republic on Friday, and have had to travel far north and east to Lithuania. On the other hand, the Netherlands won convincingly 4-0 on the road in Hungary on Friday, and return home to take on the Hungarians in Amsterdam.

France-Croatia is a friendly match (un match amical); here is France24 reporting with some comments by French manager Laurent Blanc (“Mardi soir, les Bleus retrouvent le Stade de France à l’occasion d’un match amical face à la Croatie. Après une victoire sans éclat au Luxembourg dans le cadre des éliminatoires de l’Euro-2012, Laurent Blanc pourrait enfin dessiner son équipe type”):

 

But the one we’re more looking forward to is England against one of its former colonies–with the latter having surpassed the former in terms of recent footballing success:

England-Ghana at Wembley in London (FSC, 3pm): Although this is a friendly (read: meaningless) match (made even less compelling by the fact that England manager Fabio Capello let John Terry, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney released back to their clubs), the Ghanaians may be up for coming to Wembley. For a comprehensive set of pre-match material, see ITV’s match page, which includes a match preview by African football expert @GaryAlSmith; a look by Opta at England’s unbeaten record versus African opponents; and Michael Cox (aka Mr @ZonalMarking) profiling “England new boy” winger Mike Jarvis (Wolves)

In fact, @ZonalMarking and @GaryAlSmith were having a bit of back&forth about this match on Twitter over the past couple days. E.g., here is Mr Al-Smith @-msg’ing Ghana’s likely starting XI to Mr Cox:

@garyalsmith: “@Zonal_Marking Kingson – J Pantsil, D Addy, John Mensah, Vorsah – Annan, Agyemang-Badu, A Ayew, K Asamoah – D Adiyiah, P Tagoe”

Here is an excerpt from Al-Smith’s ITV match preview:

Asamoah is the hub – his dribbling ability, off-the-ball movement and distribution will be key while Ayew covers and provides crosses for the forwards.

Capello may employ the thriving Jack Wilshere to thwart such flowing moves and that is where Stevanovic may place Annan to keep tabs on the young Gunner. Wilshere’s vision and range of passing, coupled with his excellent ball retention, makes him very similar to Annan. The potential to cancel each other out is high. Annan’s experience in the climes of Africa, Scandinavia, the World Cup and now Germany should counter any talk that Wilshere is technically the better player.

Note that it doesn’t look like Ghana will start it’s Premier League stars Michael Essien, Sulley Muntari, or Asamoah Gyan–although Panstil and John Mensah will start in defense. We’ll be watching for our favorite French-based Ghanaian, Andre Ayew. The Ghana squad had to travel to London all the way from Brazzaville and will be playing on only one day of rest, after they crushed Congo 4-0 in Brazzaville on Sunday. Scoring for Ghana in that game: Prince Tagoe, Dominic Adiyiah and Sulley Muntari (who came on as a sub in that match). Tagoe and Adiyiah both play for Partizan Belgrade.