Well over 50 international football matches will be played on Wednesday, March 5.
They include some 2015 Asian Nations Cup games, Spain versus Italy and Portugal v Cameroon. They provide one of the last opportunities for experimentation for many of the qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
And yet the most significant fixture to be played that night pits the world’s 79th -ranked team against a side that does not yet have any ranking. It will take place in the city of Mitrovica in Europe’s frequently troubled Balkans region. It will be Kosovo’s first match since last month’s announcement that FIFA, world football’s governing body, had cleared it to play friendlies against all but countries that once, like it, constituted the former Yugoslavia.