MIHLALI BALEKA
Nasreddine Nabi has urged the Kaizer Chiefs faithful not to read too much into their defeat to Young Africans yesterday, saying that it was a learning curve.
Chiefs were hammered 4-0 by Yanga in the inaugural pre-season Toyota Cup at a sold-out Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein. And while this was a friendly, some Chiefs supporters were already bemoaning the early decision to bet on Nabi to end the club’s nine-year run without a trophy.
But, speaking deep in the bowels of the 2010 World Cup stadium, the Tunisian reminded the Chiefs faithful that they are in a pre-season and rebuilding phase.
“It’s a friendly game, please guys!” the Chiefs coach said. “For the people that know football, a friendly game is not important (in terms of results).
“Okay, I don’t want a losing mentality … The game today helped me a lot as the first fixture. It gave me the opportunity to know the level of my players, collectively and individually.
“I am happy with the opportunity to see what I saw. I am not happy to lose any game, even at training. I am a winner by character.
“If I had won today, and people started praising me ‘Nabi, Nabi’. And then the league starts, and boom, (we lose) … today we observed some positive points.
“It’s not my problem if people don’t know football, and they don’t sleep today because the team lost. I know which negatives, projectives and positives we saw today.”
Nabi had also asked the Chiefs supporters to be less emotional and be patient in his pre-match media conferences.
That request was justified yesterday as his side were put to the sword by the Tanzanians. Yanga capitalised on Chiefs’ schoolboy errors with two easy goals in either half.
Prince Dube opened the scoring for Yanga before Stephane Aziz Ki fired in on the stroke of half-time, followed by Clement Mzizi and Ki’s goals in the second stanza.
The loss stung for Nabi and his charges who had come into this match hoping for a bright start to their new dawn after a three-week camp in Türkiye and launch of their new jersey last week.
“It was unpleasant for us, especially given the fact that we are playing at home,” said Nabi, “but we are taking everything that happened as a learning curve.”
Nabi and his charges will aim to take positives and learn from their weakness going into another pre-season camp in Botswana before the start of the Betway Premiership on September 10.
After all, Nabi had promised that while he might have brought an all-foreign technical team, he wants to try to rediscover the team’s DNA.
His technical team showed their commitment as they lined up on the touchline with their leader either to cajole the team or challenge referee Abongile Tom’s decisions during the game.
Yanga, however, proved why they were one of the best teams on the continent last season after finishing in the CAF Champions League quarter-finals.
They had a free run in the engine room midway through the first half and early in the second half, before exploiting Chiefs’ defensive frailties. Most of those mistakes came from their youngsters, but Nabi was a father figure, encouraging his troops with every error or substitution in the second half.
In the end, Chiefs were given a reality check regarding their readiness to reclaim the glory days.