THE Cyprus national football team host Finland in their last friendly international of the year this evening at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia at 7 pm on Wednesday.

“The national side don’t play a lot of matches each year so for that reason every single match, including this one, is very important,” said coach Nikos Nioplias.

“Finland are a very strong side and it will be a good test for us. What is important is that I will have an opportunity to make changes to the regular squad as I have many young players at my disposal. I will give them a chance to show what they can do as we must work on bringing our many quality younger players into the squad,” he added.

The Finns arrived in Cyprus with a squad of 21 players of which only two play in their native country. The squad also includes Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Alexander Ring who recently visited Cyprus when his club played against AEL in the Europa League as well as high-profile midfielder Roman Eremenko of Russia’s Rubin Kazan.

“I am very happy with the fact that we have managed to send some of our players to play abroad, because I believe that is a sign of progression,” concluded Nioplias referring to Sinisa Dobrasinovic who is currently playing for Zhetysu in Azerbaijan and Elias Charalambous of Romanian outfit Sporting Club Vaslui.

“When you play for your national team there are no friendly matches. At this level, every match is of extreme importance and we always want to win,” said Charalambous.

Nioplias called up two debutants in APOEL defender Marios Antoniadis and 19-year-old striker Pieros Sotiriou of Olympiakos Nicosia, for the Finland clash.

The experienced Greek coach picked three goalkeepers in Antonis Georgallides, Anastasios Kissas and Christos Mastrou in the squad, while in defence, as well as Charalambous and Antoniadis, Nioplias opted for Dosa Junior, Stelios Parpas, Angelis Charalambous, Jason Demetriou and Valentinos Sielis.

APOEL duo Efstathios Aloneftis and Athos Solomou are the midfielders together with Giorgos Vasiliou, Georgios Efrem, Dobrasinovic, Kostakis Artymatas, Vincent Laban, Marios Nicolaou and Christos Marangos.

Omonia’s Demetris Christofi will lead the attack alongside Pieros Sotiriou.

Constantinos Charalambides and Kyriakos Pavlou were also called up by Nioplias but they were later ruled out due to injuries.

Cyprus Mail

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