Germany-France, European Championship, semi-final. If the mere words don't get blood fizzing, brain pulsing and soul rushing, check yourself into the nearest mortuary: you might be an ex-person.

Immediately, Griezmann puts Howedes under pressure - he's forced into a tricky backpass that Neuer handles well.

And France set us away!

Looks like Germany are going 4-2-3-1 - Can will play in front of the back-four with Schweinsteiger, and Ozil will come off the right with Kroos in the middle and Draxler on the left. Not sure about that

It is literally impossible to sing La Marseillaise too fast. What a tune!

What a pair of anthems these are. Not enough toadying to royalty, but otherwise, absolutely spot-on.

AND HERE THEY COME!

There's a serious row in the Velodrome - great call to play this game here, not in St Denis.

The players are in the tunnel; things are starting to tingle.

Alan Green just said that Germany might overrun France in midfield. Can any of them even run?

The PA is playing Black Eyed Peas. It should be playing Opus.

It would be wondrously, unspeakably, absolutely, uniquely German, if they could ruin this for France. It would be very bad behaviour for France to ruin this for themselves.

I have just noticed that Radio 1 have commentary of this game. Next: Trumpton does the Budget.

Fans of both sides doing the Iceland clap ... coming to a Selhurst Park nowhere near you, or anything else.

"What was Schumacher going for, the ball or the player?" Hmmmm, makes you think.

Which was the most supine of France's subsidences to Germany? This one was exceedingly ungood...

GROWN MEN

And this.

Before we go any further, I'd just like to say this.

That, or there are good players around him who win most of the time. Definitely one of the two.

Germany, meanwhile, without Hummels, Khedira and Gomez, bring in Can, Schweinsteiger and Draxler. By the looks of things, they'll keep to their 3-5-1 - I wonder if, later in the game, that'll leave space for Coman and Martial.

So, France are unchanged, which in my ignorance makes sense. Rami is an accident waiting to happen, even if Umtiti is inexperienced, and it wouldn't make sense to wait all tournament to make an attack work only to mess with it just to get Kante in. He's good, but he's miles from brilliant. On top of that, they need to attack - that defence isn't good enough to soak up pressure, and with Germany missing so many key men, they'll never have a better chance to put it on them.