26 Aug 2024

Orapa United, affectionately known as The Ostriches has proceeded to the next round of the CAF Confederation Cup preliminary  stage following an impressive 2-0 victory over Seychelles’ Foresters FC at the National Stadium on Sunday.

 Defender Ivan Kamberipa’s thunderous strike in the 14^th minute and Resaobaka Thatanyane’s penalty kick in the 52^nd minute gave the Ostriches the much needed two goal lead to give the home side a 3-1 aggregate win following the 1-1 draw in the first leg.

 With an away goal advantage and home support fully behind them, the Orapa side was hot favourites heading into the encounter and made various changes on their first leg starting line-up and opting for Thatanyane over Eric Ookame. 

 Aime Azande was also rested with Gofaone Mabaya pushed a bit further on the ground to give more firing power.

 The changes paid dividends as the Ostriches took the game to their opponents from the first whistle to the last with a dominant performance much to the delight of the sizeable crowd that only occupied the grand stand.  

 Speaking in a post match interview, Orapa United’s tactician, Tiiso Gadimang credited his side for executing the game plan accordingly.

 “We are obviously delighted with the win, the team played according to the game plan and it was important to get an early goal, which we did to calm the nerves and frustrate our opponents,” he said.  

  Gadimang said they had learned from their first leg mistakes and did all to rectify such since their opponents were a closed book in the first leg.

 “It was difficult to prepare for our opponents in the first leg, hence the second leg was all to play for, especially that we had studied them in the previous game,” he said.

    He said they would have to put the Sunday victory behind them and focus on the next encounter, which would have its challenges.

 Orapa United will face Dynamos of Zimbabwe in the next stage of the preliminary round billed for late next month. Ends