Greek international star Kostas Katsouranis says the fans can help his minnows Heidelberg United defeat Hyundai A-League powerhouse Melbourne City in Tuesday night’s Westfield FFA Cup quarter final.
Katsouranis is in Australia on a unique one-game deal with ambitious PS4 NPL Victoria club Heidelberg United. It's hoped his experience and class will help the semi pros edge the wealthy City in a classic David v Goliath clash.
In his first press conference since arriving in Melbourne on Thursday, the Greek international said he was honoured to be in a city with so many people of Greek heritage.
Katsouranis said he hope fans will turn out in force to help the minnows from the PS4 NPL Victoria defeat the City Football Group owned Melbourne City at Olympic Village next Tuesday night in the last eight of the Cup.
An expected 10,000 crowd is tipped for the Olympic Village ground for this intriguing meeting.
And he didn’t rule out a shock win for the semi-pro clubwho made headlines with the signing of the one-time AEK and Panathinaikos star.
“This is a totally different thing. It’s one game that I know that my team Heidelberg Alexander aren’t the favourites but football is played with 11v11 and we will do our best,” he told reporters.
“Challenges are beautiful and I will be playing in front of Greeks, for me is a huge honour and for the club to do this and to invite me [and] to do my best for the people who invited me here.
“I am very happy with it and I will do my best so that we can progress to the next stage of the Cup even if it’s for my only match here.”
Click here for Heidelberg’s official site
Katsouranis, capped 116 times, has played for a host of European powerhouse clubs in his illustrious 20 year career including AEK Athens, Benfica, Panathinaikos and PAOK, making more than 485 appearances including internationals, scoring 85 goals.
And he had some encouraging words about the Socceroos and football in Australia.
“I’ve been here before, I know that it’s the second largest city of Greek people outside of Athens and that was one of my main reasons why I came here with plenty of joy.
“Generally I have a good opinion of Australia. It’s a beautiful country, very far from us in Greece.
“I have a positive outlook for the Greek people that live in Australia and Australia as a country as well as the national team [the Socceroos] as they’ve proven in the last few years in various World Cups that they’re really good.”
