"It will really stretch us" - FC Halifax Town boss Millington on Saturday's friendly with Hertha Berlin

The Shaymen will play the German top flight side for 45 minutes at St George's Park as part of a round-robin set-up also involving League Two club Salford.

Hertha finished 16th in the German Bundesliga last season. Their squad includes former Tottenham and AC Milan midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng, Polish international striker Krzysztof Piątek, and former Manchester City striker Stevan Jovetić.

"It's very exciting, and I know the lads will be looking forward to the experience," Millington said.

"Some will get the opportunity to play against Hertha Berlin, some will be playing against Salford, which is no small challenge as well.

"So it's going to be a really good weekend for us all at the club.

"And doing it down at St George's Park on the show pitch there is a real treat as well."

On how the friendly came about, Millington said: "Hertha Berlin made the approach and invited us to go and play them at St George's Park.

"We were in the process of teeing up a fixture with Salford at the time and Hertha were quite generous in offering to play a round-robin down there."

Millington says the game will be hugely beneficial to his players.

"Aside from the football, it's a great experience because it's rare that we get the opportunity to play a big European name," he said.

"Playing against a team of international players is a real treat for us, so it's fantastic.

"It will really stretch us out of possession, so we'll have to be even better than we were on Tuesday in terms of our out of possession play.

"It'll give us a real test in that sense, which is what we want at this stage of pre-season, we want to build a robust defensive structure that was so successful for us last season.

"With a new group players, it's important that structure is tested and stretched as much as it can possibly be."

The Town boss is happy with how pre-season training has gone so far.

"The first week and a bit has been largely football based, but with the intention of getting fitness into the boys, and I think we're there or thereabouts in terms of our fitness levels for this stage of pre-season," he said.

"Now, what we'll be working on over the next seven days is starting to develop some patterns of play and develop some identity in terms of what we do in possession, and that I would expect to see coming out certainly by the weekend, but certainly beyond that."

Town will wrap up their pre-season programme with two matches on Saturday, July 30, first at Curzon Ashton at 12.30pm and then at Colne at 3pm.

Millington will be at both games and says the Town squad will be split into two to accommodate both games.

"We want to get as many of our players, all the squad ideally, 90 minutes each, so they go into the first game of the season having had a full 90 the weekend before," he said.

"So the intention was to make sure all the first-team players get 90 minutes that day."