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Malta to play friendly matches against Belgian Olympic team, Austria

The Malta national team will be playing two friendly matches over the next three weeks as part of its preparation ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifiers which get underway in September.

In fact, besides the friendly match against Austria at the UPC-Arena in Graz in programme on Friday 30th May, Malta will play another friendly match against the Belgian Olympic team which is currently preparing to take part in the Beijing Olympic Gams this summer.

The game against the Belgian Olympic team will be played on Friday 23rd May - the eve of the U*BET FA Trophy final. For this reason, players who will be involved in the final will not take part in this game.

Speaking during a press conference on Friday, MFA president Dr Joe Mifsud said it was a great honour for Malta to be invited to play against Austria - one of the hosts of the EURO 2008 - just eight days before the kicks-off.

He said the MFA also accepted the request by the Belgian FA to play the friendly match against the Olympic team as this would still be a good test for the local side.

National coach Dusan Fitzel said that after the good test against Japan a few days before the kick-off of the 2006 World Cup, he was looking forward towards this game against Austria as for a small country like Malta, the team could get a feel of the atmosphere surrounding the European Championship.

Having played Austria last year, Fitzel considers this to be an important test for his players as he could compare their performance in this game with that of last year although he admitted that this was a tough period for the local players considering that this game comes at the end of the season and with the current club commitments, the squad is training just once a week.

Fitzel said that foreign-based players like Luke Dimech, Udo Nwoko and Michael Mifsud have already started their holidays and will join the squad in the coming days. The rest of the players based abroad will be available for the game against Austria. For the game against the Belgian Olympic team, he said he will use some of the promising players from the Under-21 side as well.

Tickets for the game against the Belgian Olympic team will be available for € 2.50 while thanks to Coca-Cola, thirty local fans will be taken on an all-inclusive trip to Graz to watch and support the Maltese national team in the friendly match against Austria which will be the 300th international match for Malta.

Malta to play friendly matches against Belgian Olympic team, Austria

09/05/2008 18:21:28

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