Albania coach Otto Barić must have been heartened to see his team run the England B team close in a friendly game last Friday although he will be the first to admit there is a sea of difference between his players and the English team, which featured 10 full international players. The game afforded valuable match practice to Albania ahead of the home and away double-header against Luxembourg later in June.

Albania's Besart Berisha scored in that game and his coach will hope he can reproduce something similar in the game against Luxembourg. In their last outing Albania and Slovenia played out a goalless draw under a rainy stadium. Albania coach Otto Barić was not present during that match due to health issues, but he will hope to get back in the games against Luxembourg.

Luxembourg coach Guy Hellers has huge problems on his shoulders with his team sitting at the bottom of Group G. Marc Oberweis, Marc Binsfeld and Charles Leweck all appear to be reasonably fir and Hellers is hoping to salvage something from this Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.

The team was comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Romania in March and if that was not enough to dent its confidence, it can look forward to some tough games against the Albania team.

Albania are in the sixth spot in Group G with 3 points, while Luxembourg are at the bottom with zero points. The group is led by Netherlands at 14 points followed by Romania at 11 points. Bulgaria, Belarus and Slovenia are the other teams. Albania v Luxembourg will kick off on Saturday at 19:30 GMT.