WELL, we're into the home stretch now and the happiest teams going into this last week of the championship will be England, whose bandwagon continues to gather momentum, and the Czech Republic, who have already exceeded nearly everyone's expectations.

For the hosts, this is unlikely to be a better opportunity to win a major championship trophy. To date they have had a very mixed run of performances, but from their point of view only one thing is important: they are in the semi finals, and they are looking like a side with enough confidence in themselves to go the whole way.

On Saturday they actually had the second best of theirs quarter final but, largely thanks to their defenders they kept themselves in the running well, and showed remarkable nerve in the shoot out. Their four penalties were all among the best spot kicks that I have seen in recent years.

At that point in a gamer home advantage can actually become a bit of a liability, because the pressure is all the greater for having all of your supporters there willing you to score. The temptation is to play it safe and hope that the goalkeeper guesses wrong but to their credit, the English players picked their spot and went for it.

That they got that far, however, flattered the English slightly, because for the majority of the match the Spaniards had the measure of them. Javier Clemente won the tactical battle with a tight, but not negative, game that would probably have earned his side a place in the last four had they not been unlucky to have a good goal disallowed.

The Spanish were by far the better side through the first period and the introduction of Caminero and Alfonso at the break seemed to give them an added lift. But the English defence coped well, with Adams, Southgate and Pearce all making some important tackles while Seaman was in fine form once again.

The win has earned them a chance to play Germany in the most favourable of circumstances. With Klinsmann appearing to be out and a few others doubtful, the English will have a great chance to put their greatest rivals out of the competition. Of course, the Germans are hardly a one trick outfit.

Yesterday Vogts' players were made to work hard for their win by a Croatian team who set out to impose themselves physically on the game and who should have, at the very least, pushed the game beyond the 90 minutes.

Davor Suker certainly had enough opportunities to score again for his side and, given that his team is now out of the competition, it appears that their tough approach to the proceedings will simply have done England a favour by removing a couple of key players from Wednesday's equation.

For coming through the game on top the Germans deserve a great deal of credit. They always seem to grind out the results they need and even after they lost their main goal scorers there were players of enough versatility to always make them look threatening, inside the Croatian half.

At the back there might be, some questions asked about the marking on Suker, but, given his exceptional ability at getting away from those given the task of watching over him, they may not worry too much about it for the moment.

They face something of an uphill battle to beat England on home turf, but with the overall strength of the squad they will still have every confidence in their own ability to move on to the final next Sunday.

Less confident about their team's prospects were the Czech supporters, most of whom had booked package ideals to the tournament on the assumption that there would only be three matches to be seen.

Now most of the fans have gone home and the players are heading towards their fifth game with every intention of extending the run to six by beating the French.

On the face of it that seems a little unlikely, but then, after the way in which they were demolished by the Germans, who would have predicted that they would beat the Italians and the Portuguese on the way to a place in the last four.

That they will be without four players through suspension will be a major blow but their organisation is good, they have stuck rigidly to their tactical plan and the French will have to be at their best to win the game.

With Kadlec co ordinating things at the back, the Czechs have generally looked very solid, and the way their wing backs get forward means that, if the opposition does not have some width of its own, it quickly finds itself with problems on it hands.

With the French system there is virtually no width at all and that is an aspect of the French game that the Czechs will be keen to exploit.

The French really need to decide who is their best man up front before then, for the switching between Loko and Dugarry has not really done them any favours. But elsewhere in the pitch they will feel that they have the ability to cope with most of the what the Czechs can throw at them.