Botswana football teams Jwaneng Galaxy and Gaborone United will this Friday travel to South Africa for the second leg of the CAF second preliminary games against Orlando Pirates and SuperSport United respectively.
After a sterling job, winning 1-0 against Pirates in Gaborone in the first leg, The Galaxy Stars are hoping to seal it to qualify for the group stages for the third time.
It should have been even better for Coach Morena Ramoreboli’s stars, who were denied a clear second goal by the linesman’s offside flag, with replays showing Benson Mangolo was well on-side.
South African Galaxy Coach Ramoreboli proved that beating the Soweto Giants by 4 goals to 1 when he was coaching Maluti FET College in the last 32 round of 2012/13 Nedbank Cup was not a fluke.
Moyagoleele on the other hand scored an important goal on the referee’s added time in the first leg home, to carry their hopes high to their game against Matsatsantsa a Pitori at Peter Mokaba Stadium.
Speaking to the Voice Online, Galaxy Coach Ramoreboli said a cup game is usually tricky and he is not expecting an easy game as their opponents host them in their 94 000 seater Calabash.
Morena said getting an early goal away will be ideal for them to conclude their mission.
“This is a different game altogether and we still have 90 minutes that both teams are looking for a goal. 1-0 is not a safe margin so we have to play with caution to avoid conceding. In the first leg, we had so many chances but we were not really clinically in front of the goals and it is something that we worked on during training for the past two weeks. Pirates were giving us a tough time in the middle of the park and we had to dig deep in order to balance the areas where they wanted to play. They were stretching us a bit and we managed to handle them so my boys are ready for the fight,” said Ramoreboli
For his part GU Coach Pontsho Moloi said they played well in the first leg but were let down by the poor finish.
He said his intention is to get an early goal which he believes will build the confidence of his boys.
“We have been here before. Remember when we played against Elgeco Plus we lost 1-0 home and managed to come back and defeat them3-1 away. It is not a good thing to play under pressure and that last minute goal against SuperSport is what we needed and I am proud of my boys for their fighting spirit,” said Moloi
