Township Rollers will today Saturday 27 July, 2019 face Tanzania champions Simba at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus in Rustenburg as preparations for the upcoming CAF Champions League gather momentum.

Popa were initially meant to face the 20 time Tanzanian champions last week Thursday but after a request from the Simba technical team to do more physical work on their side the match was deferred to this Saturday, July 27.

Since the friendly was arranged last week, there was an interesting twist- Rollers were on Sunday drawn to play against Simba’s traditional rivals Young Africans in the CAF Champions League preliminary stage.

Rollers head coach Tomas Trucha told rollersfc.com on Friday that the match against Simba- who reached the quarterfinals of the previous edition earlier this year- would be good preparation.

“What is important for us is game time, we will be playing against Simba, a good opponent that have achieved a lot already. Like us they will be missing some players who have been called up to the national team and they will have the same objectives as us; to have a good pre-season preparation match and to give players game time to all players,” Trucha said.

Rollers will be without the six players called up to the national team as the Zebras face Zambia in Friday’s CHAN qualifier in Francistown- goalkeeper Keeagile Kgosipula and outfield players Segolame Boy, Tumisang Orebonye, Thatayaone Ditlhokwe, Mothusi Cooper and Kaone Vanderwesthuizen.

“We are in pre-season and there is no difference if we are playing Simba or Kaizer Chiefs or Supersport; we have a programme to prepare the team and we still have another two weeks of preparations before the first official match. There are areas we are still working on,” Trucha said.

Popa are scheduled to play Young Africans when the 2019-20 CAF Champions League kicks off in August.

The winner of this tie will play the winner of the match between Zesco of Zambia and Green Mamba of eSwatini for a place in the group stage.

Township Rollers

Kelvin Trudeau Musako

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