Moorosi Tsiane
BANTU coach James Madidilane says it is important for his charges to come home with positive results from their away CAF Champions League fixture against Botswana’s Township Rollers on Tuesday night in Gaborone.
The defending Econet Premier League champions left the country yesterday for Botswana where they will play Rollers in the first leg with the return fixture set for the 4th of next month at Setsoto Stadium.
Bantu last season made an early exit from the competition after completing the two legs tied at 4-4 aggregate with eSwatini’s Mbabane Swallows but lost out on away goal’s rule.
A Matšo Matebele had lost the first leg 2-4 at home before winning the return leg match 1-3.
Madidilane told the Sunday Express recently that the loss to Swallows at home was a lesson and they want to ensure that they wrap up the game in Botswana.
“Our experience last season will come in handy in this match and we have learnt that it is important that we score many goals away and that is what we are working on,” Madidilane said.
“We want to wrap up this game in our first leg and come home here just to maintain what we will have already started.”
The Mafeteng outfit has already played two friendly matches as part of their preparations with Bloemfontein Celtic where they lost 2-1 and Central University of Technology who they beat 2-0.
“We didn’t have much time to prepare but the response from the players is promising.
“The match will be played under the lights which is something that we are not used to hence we decided to play our friendly with CUT at night and starting from Today (Thursday) we will be having night sessions at Setsoto Stadium to ensure that the players get used to it,” he said.
Madidilane said their ambition is to surpass their previous performance in the tournament.
“The stage got too high for our boys and they were panicking especially in the first leg here at home but things got better in the return leg. So, this year we have many players with experience and we are also trying to work hard to see that we manage the pressure that comes with this game.
“So far, I am satisfied and hopefully we can bring home the results because our ambition this year is to surpass our performance from the last edition.
“This team is good we know they were knocked out in the group stages last season so they won’t be push overs but that is okay because we will have to work hard and double our efforts to see that we get the results,” Madidilane said.
Bantu are making their third appearance at the competition and have consecutively passed the preliminary stages while Rollers have made four appearances and were last season knocked out by Espérance Sportive de Tunis in Group stages.
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