Aberdeen will tonight be surfing the tide of goodwill sweeping through Scottish football as they launch their campaign in the group stages of the UEFA Cup against Panathinaikos.

Jimmy Calderwood, the club's manager, disclosed last night that, after his team's success in overcoming the Ukrainian side Dnipro in the qualifying stages, he has received a heavy mailbag of letters from supporters of Rangers and Celtic wishing the Pittodrie side well.

Tonight, in the Apostolis Nikoaidis Stadium, Calderwood will be willing his frugally assembled squad to do their utmost to emulate their Old Firm rivals' efforts in the Champions League.

"I think things are starting to change," he said, "but the amount of mail I received from Rangers and Celtic supporters for beating Dnipro was unbelievable. Supporters want their own team to win but there's such a feelgood factor about Scottish football just now because of what the Old Firm and Scotland have done recently that maybe, just maybe, there are a few people wakening up and thinking how good it would be if other teams succeeded in these tournaments.

"When I was coaching in Holland there were seven Dutch teams in Europe. If we can get a fifth one in from Scotland that's nearly half our league, which would be brilliant for the competition."

Scott Severin, the team captain, will be in place as usual after responding to treatment after an injury at Inverness last Sunday while Chris Clark and Michael Hart, recent absentees, will also be available, with the final decision on whether the latter plays being left to the player.

Hart, who had his tonsils removed three weeks ago, returned to hospital with an infection and during his recovery period lost a stone. There were major doubts over his fitness for the trip but Calderwood was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"When you sign players and you extend their contracts you know what kind of characters you are signing. It's not just about them being football players, it's about people with character and we like to think we have many of them in the side."

Hart explained his worrying scenario. "I was warned I might need another operation to stop the bleeding," he said. "But thankfully it eventually stopped on its own, although I wasn't able to eat because of the pain. I'm now managing to eat normally again. The manager came in on Friday and asked if I wanted to go and I made it clear there was no way he would stop me.

"It's now a case of eating and drinking as much proteins and carbohydrates as I can and I've put five pounds back on."

Jose Peseiro, the Panathinaikos coach, who took Sporting Lisbon to the final three years ago, believes he can repeat the feat with his current charges. "I must admit I was surprised by Aberdeen's result against Dnipro," said Peseiro, more recently the assistant to Carlos Queiroz at Real Madrid. "But when I watched the video tapes of the games I realised they had deserved to go through. But all of us at Panathinaikos believes we can win this competition."