TS Galaxy president Tim Sukazi has explained why he thinks his team’s visit to Turkey will help change the Galaxy’s players’ perspectives toward the game and to South African football.
The Rockets jetted into Turkey last week Thursday, where they had a mini pre-season training camp prior to the resumption of the DStv Premiership.
The Mpumalanga based club played a friendly match with the Turkish professional football club Giresunspor Kulubu on Tuesday, where the two teams shared the spoils after a 1-1 draw.
Sukazi feels that having friendly matches with European teams will help his players to be noticed by overseas teams and could probably change the standard of South African football, more especially the national team.
“I hope this really brings about a mind shift in our players. Firstly, our players will have the opportunity to benchmark themselves against European standards in all aspects,” Sukazi told Metro FM.
“We are playing Sampdoria on the 11th, and then Al Batin from Saudi Arabia. We know how good Saudi Arabian teams have become lately in terms of football standards. On the 15th we are playing German second division outfit Dynamo. I think that our players hopefully, after this exposure, will be able to see how good they are and where they at in terms of world standards and of course as a club we are also learning a lot from this.
“But most importantly, it will talk to South African football as well. I hope us being the first club to take this kind of adventure, will result in more South African clubs touring Europe. Because if we could really benchmark ourselves as a group, let’s say ten or eight clubs, maybe we will stand a chance of lifting our game,”
“We can’t sit and complain about the standard of our game or standard of our national team. We need to do something.”
The Rockets resume the DStv Premiership campaign against the struggling Maritzburg United at the Harry Gwala Stadium on the 30th of December at 19h30.
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