Listen, the new boss Nasreddine Nabi is cooking something at Kaizer Chiefs.
Sure, it’s still too early in the season to make this pronouncement, but after this weekend’s action, where the ‘mighty’ Kaizer Chiefs beat Marumo Gallants 2-1 in Bloemfontein, Nabi just might transform this Amakhosi team into genuine title contenders, might.
If you’ve watched Chiefs over the last couple of years, whenever they went a goal behind, you could see the panic set in. Shoulders dropped, players started having a go at each other, and you could see that players didn’t know what to do next.
There wasn’t any of that this past weekend as they went behind in their league opener against Marumo Gallants in Bloemfontein, you could hear groans of “here we go again” from the Chiefs faithful as they looked at how the team would respond.
But on Saturday, there was a maturity to how the team reacted. No one was panicking, and you could see the players were still on the same page and had belief that they could, not only get back in the game, but go on and win it at the end. And that’s exactly what they did.
After the game, fans were raving about the likes of Bradley Cross, Rushwin Dortley, Miguel Igancio, and goalscorers Mduduzi Shabalala and teen sensation Mfundo Vilakazi.
It was refreshing to see. The biggest club in the country was playing with purpose.
After a slow pre-season, that had fans scratching their heads after a number of poor performances, Saturday’s win, in a competitive game, is a sign that Nabi and Chiefs are going in the right direction, and the fans need to start buying into his vision.
Chiefs are not going to win the league. There will be some hair-raising moments during the season where they will look like they’re moving backwards, but that’s just normal.
The club’s fans need to stick with their coach because looking at what happened on Saturday, it looks like he’s on the right path to turning the club around.
Cape Town City chairman made a point last month that South African football needed the Soweto giants Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates to be at their very best.
With Pirates looking to challenge Mamelodi Sundowns for the title, Amakhosi need to step up. Can you imagine how exciting the league would be if the country’s most followed teams were fighting for the biggest honours?
* Lunga Biyela is a digital journalist.
* The views expressed are not necessarily the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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