Kiev  - The Greek national side was on Thursday attracting unprecedented attention among Ukrainian football professionals and amateurs alike, as the former Soviet republic counted down to the first of a two-game qualification play-off for the 2010 World Cup.

Ukraine's coaching staff had reviewed game tapes for the last eleven matches played by Greece, in preparation for the upcoming Saturday match in Athens, the authoritative Komanda sports newspaper reported.

Greece's current fitness worries have been profiled in Ukraine's media, with Sehodnia newspaper's Thursday sports section poring over the injuries to Greek players in detail, even offering medical prognoses.

However, the paper also added a note of caution, saying "in our opinion, some of these (reported Greek) injury problems may be an attempt to deceive us."

Pre-game comments by Theofanis Gekas, generally accounted by Ukrainian media as Greece's most dangerous player, have been widely reported as well, particularly a Gekas' prediction first made public at the FIFA's web site: "The young players of Ukraine lack experience. In this we (Greece) definitely have an advantage."

Former Ukraine national team coach Oleg Blokhin, who led Ukraine to a World Cup 2006 quarter-final finish, and prior to that coached at top-level Greek clubs for more than a decade, has in recent weeks been in great demand for interviews, as a "Greek expert."

"They (Greece) are not as strong as they were five years ago," Blokhin told Sports Ekspress newspaper. "In these cases the usual diplomatic thing to say is that both teams have a 50-50 chance. But I think, that chances are higher for Ukraine."

Gazeta Po-Kievsky, a daily published in the capital Kiev, and normally giving limited column space to football, offered Thursday readers an original guide to the Greece national team, by printing a partial list of the classic Greek pantheon, and then matching members of the modern side to a mythological deity.

Coach Otto Rehhagel was according to the newspaper evaluation performing the functions of the King of the gods Zeus, top striker Gekas - the god of fire Hephaestus, and Panathinaikos' battling midfielder Konstantinos "Kostos" Katsouranis - Ares, the god of war.

Blik, a popular Ukrainian tabloid normally reporting on show business personalities and supernatural issues, also was focusing on the 2010 World Cup on Thursday, interviewing a "trained numerologist" on Ukraine's hopes against Greece.

Both sides would win away, predicted medium Konstantin Adaskadsalitsa, citing Ukraine's affinity for the number 14, the date of the Athens game; and Greece's relative superiority concerning the number 18, the date of the Donetsk game, according to the Blik report.(dpa)