Goal.com

Goal.com casts an eye on the players who are just a booking away from a heartbreaking ban for the semi-finals of the European Championship

As well as a major tournament campaign demanding a lot of the players involved physically, a highly-disciplined performance throughout the competition is a pre-requisite, or someone's heart could be broken.

As it currently stands, two bookings across the course of the tournament will earn a player a one-match suspension, but Uefa has introduced an amnesty that will wipe the slate clean after the quarter-final stage.

PLAYERS RISKING A SUSPENSION
Germany Holger Badstuber	Greece K. Papadopoulos Dimitris Salpingidis Vasilis Torosidis

That ensures that there will be no-one forced to miss the final for accumulating a yellow card too many, unless they commit a particularly vicious foul and pick up a red card.

However, every player will be hoping to not let down their team by getting themselves suspended for the last four tie itself, and dash a personal dream in the process.

Approaching Germany's last eight clash with Greece, a grand total of players stand on the brink of missing a potential date with Italy or England in the next round. Goal.com takes a look at the players who will have to be extra-diligent during Friday's match.

GERMANY

The European Championship group stage saw Holger Badstuber forge a very successful centre-back partnership with Mats Hummels. However, the Bayern Munich defender will enter the quarter-final clash with Greece knowing that he will be unavailable for the next round should he add to the yellow card he picked up against Portugal.

And, although 81-cap Per Mertesacker would be a more than able deputy, a suspension would be tragic on a personal level for the 23-year-old, who missed his club's recent Champions League final after picking up a yellow card in the second leg of the last four against Real Madrid.

However, that is the extent of Joachim Low's worries ahead of the Greece match. Jerome Boateng was booked in both of the opening two games of the tournament, and sat the third match against Denmark out, so will be available to play Fernando Santos' side with a clean record.

GREECE

Not only will Greece require a seamless performance on the pitch to overcome their illustrious opponents, but they will need to be incredibly disciplined so as not to shoot themselves in the foot. No team in the tournament picked up more bookings than Fernando Santos' side, and they will already be missing Giorgos Karagounis and Jose Holebas for the quarter-final match.

A further three players will be ruled out of the last four if they find their names in the referee's notebook on Friday: Dimitris Salpingidis, Kyriakos Papadopoulos and Vasilis Torosidis.

Worryingly for the Portuguese coach, all three players are much-needed by their side. Salpingidis scored the match-saving goal in their tournament opener against Poland, Papadopoulos' presence in the defence is essential, given the injury sustained by his namesake, Avraam, and Torosidis has been a mainstay at right-back - an area where Greece are rather short-staffed - and is yet to miss a minute of his country's campaign.