The Greek team arrived at Noi Bai International Airport, Hanoi at 9.30am, May 12. They were warmly welcomed by dozens of fans, representatives of the Greek Embassy and Vietnamese reporters.

The Greek team at Noi Bai Airport on May 12.

Learning experience from the visit of Olympic Brazil last year, the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) professionally organised the welcome ceremony. VFF arranged some guards at the terminal and a traditional musical troupe in the airport’s hall.

At 10.40am, Greek players appeared in the terminal in jeans and red T-shirts, weaving their hands at Vietnamese fans. They were very interested in the traditional musical troupe so most of them stayed to watch the show and took some photos with instrumentalists.

The team moved to the Sheraton Hotel in Hanoi’s centre. Today, May 13, they will pay a visit to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and play football at the Dream House Football School before having a practice at My Dinh National Stadium at 7.30pm.

Olympiakos comes to Vietnam without outstanding faces like Luciano Galleti, Belluschi, Ledesma, Leto, Darko Kovacevic and Predrag Djordjevic. The most famous names are goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis, 38, and coach HLV Ernesto Valverde. The match against Vietnam will be the last for this coach because his contract with Olympiakos has expired.

Coach Ernesto Valverde stated that the absence of some players would not affect the team’s strength. Olympiakos will try its best to give Vietnam a good match.

Before the friendly match on May 14, the chief coach of the Vietnamese national squad Henrique Calisto admitted his concerns because his team was not at full strength. Calisto will have only five senior players who played important roles in the AFF Cup 2008, namely Phuoc Tu, Viet Cuong, Tan Tai, Cong Vinh and Viet Thang. Minh Phuong and Quang Cuong won’t be able to participate in the match because of injuries.

Calisto has not been pleased with the spirit of his players because they have seemed sluggish during recent practices. “The spirit is completely different from when we played in the AFF Cup. It is really difficult to compare the strength of the Vietnamese squad at that tournament and at present,” he said.

Though facing some difficulties, Calisto still believes this will be a successful match for Vietnam. “I don’t care about the score of this match. I want to see my players’ enthusiasm. They need to play like champions. I want to find some new players for my team and I hope they will learn useful things from this match. I believe that the Vietnamese squad will succeed in this sense,” the coach stated.

PV