Hamburg - Portugal, Serbia and Finland are among teams looking to improve their chances of qualifying for the 2008 European Championships with victories on Wednesday. Of six qualifying matches, three are in Group A where Portugal travel to Armenia, Serbia have a tricky encounter at Belgium while Finland are at home to Kazakhstan.
All three are on 14 points in the group, five behind leaders Poland who are not in Euro action.
However Portugal and Serbia have two games in hand over Poland and one over Finland in what appears to have become a four-team battle for the two qualifying places in the eight-team group.
Wednesday's games come with only three months remaining before the 14 qualifiers are determined to join hosts Austria and Switzerland in next summer's tournament.
The qualifying picture will become clearer when all the teams again enter the fray in the next rounds of qualifying matches on September 8 and 12.
Serbia striker Nikola Zigic is a definite non-starter for his team's trip to Belgium, whose qualifying hopes have now dwindled.
Zigic, 26, has been struggling with an ankle injury which ruled him out of Valencia's 3-0 Champions League defeat of Elfsborg in the first leg of the third qualifying round of the competition last week.
Serbia coach Javier Clemente hopes the striker will be fit again for next month's qualifiers against Finland and Portugal.
In the only match in Group F, Northern Ireland could overtake Spain to go second behind Sweden with a home win over Liechtenstein.
Damien Johnson and Jonny Evans have pulled out of the Northern Ireland squad for the match.
Johnson has a hamstring problem while Evans has a groin injury. Manager Nigel Worthington has called up Hull City's Stuart Elliott and Ross County's Sean Webb as replacements ahead of the game.
Wednesday's other see the bottom sides in Group D and Group E in action.
In Group D, Cyprus play whipping boys San Marino who have lost all six of their matches and conceded 36 goals, while in Group E Estonia - without a point or a goal in seven games - take on Andorra, who are bottom without a point and an even worse goal difference.
