He has been given mandate to win league and Top 8
European coaches interested in the role
LETLHOGILE MPUANG
Township Rollers have appointed Teenage Mpote as the club’s new head coach, following the departure of Mark Harrison to the South African Premier League. The defending league champions were treated to a bombshell late last year when English coach Harrison informed the club that he was leaving the side to take up a role at lowly placed PSL team Baroka FC.
The club had since ordered his assistants in Mpote and Thabo Motang to act on interim basis while they still search for the right candidate to take the team forward. However, the duo have now been appointed on full time basis, and will lead Popa until the end of the 2016/17 season. This was confirmed in a press release from the club on Sunday.
“It brings us great pleasure to announce the appointment of Mr Mogomotsi ‘Teenage’ Mpote to the position of Head Coach of Township Rollers Football Club with immediate effect. Teenage takes over after the recent resignation of Mr Mark Harrison, who had been our Head Coach since the beginning of the 2015/16 league season. Teenage will be in-charge of the team until the end of the current 2016/17 season. Mr Thabo Motang, currently our Goal keeper coach has agreed to take additional responsibility of assisting Teenage during this period,” reads the statement.
“We believe that Mogomotsi Mpote, while assisting and guiding our past professional coaches, has gained enough experience to lead this mighty club on his own. The club puts the confidence in him and strongly believes that his vast experience and knowledge of the game will be a huge benefit to our talented players.On behalf of the President and the Executive Committee of Township Rollers FC, we wish Mr. Mogomotsi Mpote and Mr. Thabo Motang all the best of luck as they continue the journey with The Blue NatIon,” ends the communique. Contacted for further comments on the media release, the club’s Public Relations Officer Bafana Pheto added the following.
“It is a five month contract that we have signed with Mpote, which is for until the end of the season. We felt that it was important that we had continuity from our last coach, someone who doesn’t have a far different approach from our former coach, so Mpote and Thabo were the right candidates,” said Pheto. He added that the former BR Highlanders coach was entrusted with the responsibilities of guiding the team to a BTC Premiership , Mascom Top 8 double as well as a group stage finish in the CAF Champions League.
“We expect him to take over from where Mark Harrison left off, we want to win the league and Mascom Top 8. We also have ambitions of reaching the group stages of the CAF Champions League. We are giving him a chance to prove himself, which if he does, there is a great possibly of him taking over beyond the end of the season,” further gave the Spokesperson. In the end, Pheto informed Gazette Sport that over 14 European coaches have expressed interest in the coaching role at the club.
“We have received about 14 applications from Europe, with most of them coming from Serbia, Russia and UK. We have also received one application from Zambia, and another one from South Africa. Locally no one has shown interest or dropped their application,”he ended.
Meanwhile, Pheto also informed this publication that the club was out looking for a backup goal keeper to provide cover for Kabelo Dambe, who is likely to be out for the rest of the season due to a shoulder injury. Asked if the team had identified a possible target, he was coy on revealing such information. Winger Galabgwe Moyana is also expected to be out of action for more than three months due to injury.