President Pinera will decorate the miners before the football match in the National Stadium Some of the 33 Chilean miners who were rescued after more than two months trapped underground will on Monday face their rescuers and government officials in a football match.
The game will be played in Chile’s National Stadium in the capital, Santiago.
The miners’ team is being coached by one of the rescued men, Franklin Lobos, a former professional footballer.
Mining Minister Laurence Golborne is expected to play for the opposition.
Some reports say that due to the number of miners and the lack of fitness of some of the players, it will be a 16-a-side match, rather than 11-a-side.
Before the match, the miners have been invited to the presidential palace in Santiago.
President Sebastian Pinera will decorate them with medals to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Chile’s independence from Spain.
The bicentenary was celebrated in Chile in September when the men were still trapped underground.
One of the miners, Mario Gomez, has said they will discuss with the president ways of improving safety in mines.
The BBC’s Gideon Long in Santiago says the miners have become celebrities not just in Chile, but around the world since being rescued nearly two weeks ago.
Books about their ordeal are being written, while there has been talk of Hollywood films of their story. Some of the men have been to Spain to appear on a TV chat show.
People have been queuing up in Santiago and at the World Expo in Shanghai to have their photographs taken next to the Phoenix escape capsules that were built to bring the men to the surface after more than two months underground.
And the message that announced that the trapped men were alive and well has been copyrighted on behalf of the miner who wrote it, Jose Ojeda.
Chilean writer Pablo Huneeus registered the phrase in Mr Ojeda’s name. It was discovered attached to a probe 17 days after the mine collapse.
Mr Pinera showed off the note during his visit to Europe last week and in the Uk gave copies of it to the Queen and prime minister.
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