“We want to reach the group stage,” Bernard Parker says about Kaizer Chiefs’ ambitions in the 2016 CAF Champions League. Amakhosi will face Comoros’ Volcan Club de Moroni at Stade de Moroni on Sunday afternoon (kick-off is at 14:00, South African time).

Chiefs arrived in the Comoros, officially called the Union of Comoros, on Friday afternoon to play the first leg of the preliminary round of the African Champions League.

The country’s capital is Moroni, which is based on Grande Comoro (Big Comoro). French and Arabic are the main languages spoken on the Comoros, which is situated in the Indian Ocean off Africa’s eastern coast between northeast Mozambique and northwest Madagascar.

It will be Amakhosi’s third year in a row to participate in the Champions League, which is an excellent achievement. Chiefs have, however, been unable to reach the group stage as yet, after going out in the second round (in 2014) and the first round (in 2015, against Morocco’s Raja Casablanca).

Parker, though, is adamant that the lessons learnt during the last two editions of the Champions League will help the squad to reach the group stage this year.

“We are really excited to play again in the Champions League,” the Chiefs striker points out. “It’s a great African adventure for the team. We just have to stay focussed and concentrate on the job which is to reach at least the group stage. That’s what we all want.”

Parker admits not knowing much about Sunday’s opponent Volcan de Moroni, but does compare the way the team play with that of soccer clubs in neighbouring countries like Seychelles and Zanzibar: “They are a hard-running team and, obviously, they will also be highly motivated to play against us.”

Volcan won the Comorian league championship in 2015. They participated last year in the CAF Confederation Cup, but failed to get past Angola’s Petro de Luanda, getting beaten 5-0 on aggregate.

The Amakhosi striker has struggled in recent times with a knee injury, but feels he is back to full fitness: “It’s now more about getting game time than anything else. I feel strong.”

He’s also happy about Chiefs having won three times in a row, beating Golden Arrows, Maritzburg United and Bidvest Wits.

“It shows our great team spirit,” explains the 29-year-old. “We are really fighting to keep the league title. We grinded out some positive results and we can only get better from here. We are slowly getting back to the Kaizer Chiefs way of playing. We feel good.”

The second leg of the CAF Champions League preliminary round will take place at the Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday, February 27.