17 Aug 2023

Jwaneng Galaxy FC and Gaborone United (GU) will this weekend start their journeys in the CAF competitions.

Galaxy will be taking on Uganda’s outfit, Vipers Sporting Club in the CAF Champions league at Lobatse Sports Complex on Sunday, while GU will face Elgeco Plus Football Club in the CAF Confederations Cup at the National Stadium on Saturday.

In an interview with BOPA, Galaxy mouthpiece, Tankiso Morake said they could not be more ready for their assignment.

“We are in the fifth week of our pre-season and we have played a number of international teams during that time, such as Bantu FC from Lesotho, Orbit College from South Africa and Mbabane FC from eSwatini.

We opted for international friendlies because we are familiar with local teams’ style of play,” he said.

Morake said they also had time to assess their new acquisitions, such as striker Omaatla Kebatho from Orapa United, Goitseone Phoko from GU and Namibian national team captain, Carlos Fredericks.

“All these three players have international experience which we count on for this CAF assignment. We take Vipers SC seriously because their neighbouring countries like Tanzania has a good level of football,”

On how much they know about the team, Morake said they could not disclose much as it was confidential information.

“We do not want them to spy on us.

They too have been secretive, ever since the draw, they do not post much on their website like they used to. We learnt that they recently played Mamelodi Sundowns in a friendly, but that does not appear anywhere on their social media,” he said.

Morake also appealed to supporters to come in large numbers to the game, and said they had arranged two buses to ferry supporters from Jwaneng to Lobatse.

Should Galaxy make it through the preliminary round, they would likely face Orlando Pirates of South Africa, who would be playing against Djabal of Comoros. The website and social pages of Vipers SC indicates that the club was founded in 1969 as Bunamwaya FC and had won the Ugandan Premier League six times ever since, its first ever coming in 2010 although they did not participate in the CAF Champions League due to financial constraints.

In 2012, the club was renamed Vipers SC, to ‘remove its regional tag and make in more nationally relevant’, according to its website.

They participated in their first ever CAF competition in 2016, after winning the Ugandan Premier league for the second time, but were eliminated by Nigerian heavyweights, Enyimba FC 1-2 on aggregate.

From hence forth, they won other title that qualified them for either the CAF Champions league or CAF Confederations cup, but their most notable achievement in the competitions was a CAF Championship league group stage qualification during the 2022/23 season, after eliminating Democratic Republic of Congo heavyweights, TP Mazembe 4-2 on penalties following a deadlock on both legs.

Meanwhile, Elgeco has not been too busy on the CAF competitions, with their achievements coming during 2014 and 2015 when they were eliminated at the preliminary stages for both years.

The game between Galaxy and Vipers SC will be played at Lobatse Sports Complex at 3pm and tickets go for P50 grandstand and P30 elsewhere. The return leg will be played in Uganda on August 26.

Meanwhile, the first leg between GU and Elgeco will be at the National stadium at 4pm, with the second leg played on August 27. Ends