Pascalinah Kabi
MASERU — Matlama Football Club will on Tuesday lock horns with South Africa’s Bloemfontein Celtics as they step up preparations for the Caf Champions League.
The match will be played at the Vodacom Park Stadium in Bloemfontein.
Matlama are scheduled to play South African glamour side Supersport United in the first round of the Caf Champions League tournament on January 29 at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Limpopo.
Tuesday’s friendly tie against Celtics will be Matlama’s first match since November after most of their fixtures were postponed due to national team commitments.
Tse Putsoa had several of their players doing national duty with the Under 20 team in the Cosafa and Supreme Council of Sports in Africa games last month in Botswana and Swaziland respectively.
Matlama have as a result only played seven league matches this season. The club’s tie against Swallows which was scheduled for today has also been postponed because five of their players are with the national Under 23 side in Malawi.
The five players are skipper Nkau Lerotholi, Litsepe Marabe, Mokone Marabe, Thapelo Mokhehle and Mohau Khali.
Matlama coach, Mahao Matete, bemoaned the continuous absence of key players adding that it was negatively affecting the team’s preparations against Supersport on January 29.
“Our preparations have been negatively affected by their absence,” Matete said.
“We however agreed with their coaches that when they come back they will be with us full time.”
Matete said the club had lined up a number of friendly matches to fine-tune the squad ahead of the crunch Supersport tie.
“Their national coaches have promised us that they will be with us on Monday. The players will be part of the team that will play Bloemfontein Celtics on Tuesday,” he said.
Matete insisted the team will be ready for Supersport in three weeks’ time.
“Our preparations will only start next week,” Matete said.
“If the boys attend the training programmes without any interruption for the next three weeks, then we will be ready to face Supersport,” he said.
He said Matlama’s technical team already had a strategy on how they are going to handle Supersport.
“Our strategy is to make sure that we contain at least two to three Supersport players whom we think are very dangerous,” he said.