Football-US Cremonese arrive, meet Red Star on Wednesday |01 June 2005

Italian Serie C1/A champions US Cremonese arrived Tuesday May 31 (morning) for a seven-day tour of Seychelles.

“We’ve been invited here to play two games and we expect both of them to be tough.

Two players from Seychelles trained with us earlier this year and they are very good individually. I expect the teams we are to play against to be quite good too. It’s also a good opportunity for us to come to a nice place like Seychelles. It’s very different from Italy. It’s a fascinating experience to visit other places. We also hope to enjoy ourselves here as Seychelles is a nice holiday destination,” midfielder Federico Smanio told Sports Nation on  Tuesday morning upon the team’s arrival.

Present at the Seychelles International Airport to welcome the US Cremonese players was Red Star and Seychelles striker Wilnes Brutus who, along with La Passe’s central defender Jonathan Bibi, followed a five-week training camp with the Italian side in Cremona.

Footballer of the year Brutus, who is to finalise his professional contract with US Cremonese during the team’s stay here, chatted with all the players and added that he “would like to score against them in this afternoon’s match.”

The 22-year-old, it is to note, has banged in three hat-tricks in eight games in the Airtel Cup.

Formed in 1903 and based in Cremona, US Cremonese, who have earned promotion to play in the Serie B next season, last played in the Calcio – Serie A – in 1996 and won the Anglo-Italian Cup in 1993.

Their second match is on Saturday at 4.30 p.m. at Stad Linite against St Michel.

Tickets for the matches cost R15, R25 and R35.

G. G.