By Bodwa Mbingo 29 January, 2010 10:00:00
Posted by the Swazi Observer
SOCCER – The country’s Orange CAF Confederations Cup representatives, Mbabane Highlanders, will play their first leg match against Zimbabwe’s Caps United on the artificial turf of the Rufaro Stadium in Zimbabwe’s capital city of Harare.
The match will be played on Saturday, February 13 and kick off time is 3pm. Rufaro Stadium is one of Zimbabwe’s multi-purpose stadiums currently used mostly for soccer matches and has a capacity of 35,000 people.
Sponsored
Just like the country’s MECCA, Somhlolo National Stadium, the stadium benefited from the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) through it’s GOAL programme that sponsored the renovation of the stadium’s natural grass pitch into an artificial football pitch installed by ACT Global Sports.
Referees for this encounter will come from Botswana while the Match Commissioner will come from Lesotho. The second leg match will be played at the Somhlolo Stadium on February 27. Highlanders’ Public Relations Officer (PRO) Dumisani ‘DU’ Sibandze yesterday confirmed the venue and date of the match. He urged all the team’s supporters to gear up for the trip to Zimbabwe as they will need them in their numbers. He said judging by the stadium’s capacity, the team’s players could be overwhelmed by the home supporters hence the need for the Highlanders fans to also travel with the team to rally behind them.
“We have to do well in Zimbabwe to make sure that we advance to the next stage of the tournament. We have a good record in the CAF tournaments and our return now should not be outdone by an early exit from the tournament. All the team’s supporters should prepare for the trip as we’re planning to leave Zimbabwe exactly after the match to be in time to watch the Swallows match against South Africa’s Supersport the following day. This is now a war for all the Swazis and we have to stand by each other as the country’s representatives,” he said.
