Friends turn foes tomorrow as six Saints stars go head-to-head for their countries in the first round of Euro 2004 qualifiers.

Possibly the most interesting duel will be between rival goalkeepers Paul Jones and Antti Niemi as Wales take on Finland.

But Sweden's game against Latvia will also provide an interesting spectacle for Saints fans as Anders and Michael Svensson come up against Marian Pahars and Imants Bleidelis.

Speaking of his country's opening game with Wales in Group nine, Niemi, signed last month for £2m from Hearts, said: "There is great optimism in Finland at the moment and it almost feels like a lot of people expect us to qualify, but in Europe it is more difficult to qualify for the big tournaments than anywhere else.

"We have certainly got a very tough group. Everybody knows about Italy and they are the big favourites.

"But then you have Yugoslavia and you never know with them.

"One day they can be the best team in the world but the next they might be fighting with each other. On Saturday though we face Wales and I think they are a much better team than a lot of people realise.

"They have got some quality players like Ryan Giggs and Paul Jones but it would be great if we could start with a win."

Finnish football has improved vastly in the past few years and the country's fans are hoping they will soon be challenging the best Scandinavian teams around.

"I think Norway, Denmark and Sweden have already established themselves in world football in the last five years and we would like to do that in Finland," said Niemi.

"I think we have a lot of good coaches now and that explains why kids want to play the game, whereas ten or 15 years ago they wanted to go skiing.

"But players like Jari Litmanen have moved that on and kids look up to him. I can't describe just how important he is and everybody in the Finnish team looks up to him. He is our playmaker and he scores goals.

"The other big difference now is that, ten years ago, Finland had two or three players playing abroad but most of the Finnish team were taken from the domestic league but now there is nobody from the Finnish league."

As well as the Svens-son's v the Latvians and Niemi v Jones encounters, Wayne Bridge is hoping to win another cap for England against Portugal, Rory Delap is with Ireland in Russia and Claus Lundekvam has an outside chance of recovering from his hamstring injury to play turn out for Norway. They have a date with old foes Denmark.