Snl24 | Sweet or sour: Nabi’s ‘dish’ at Chiefs finally on the menu

Nasreddine Nabi will finally present the work that he has been doing behind the scenes at Kaizer Chiefs hoping for improved fortunes.

It has been the longest ever wait for Kaizer Chiefs without playing competition football between two seasons, but Amakhosi will finally get back on Saturday.

With what happened last season as Chiefs sank to their worst finish in the league resulting in a trophy-barren spell reaching nine years, Nasreddine Nabi will have all eyes on him.

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Saturday’s league opener against Marumo Gallants in Bloemfontein will give the coach further understanding about this job as what he has been doing behind closed doors comes before the public eye.

The ‘ingredients’ that Nabi has needed in his role as the ‘chef’ have been provided with Bradley Cross, Inacio Miguel, Gaston Sirino, Bongani Sam, Rushwin Dortley, Fiacre Ntwari and Njabulo Blom brought in.

These have been signings that have come with an element of input from the Tunisian-Belgian, so expectations are that there should be an improvement from the yawn that largely defined last season for the club under Molefi Ntseki and Cavin Johnson.

Millions have been spent in bringing in Cross, Miguel, Dortley and Ntwari, so this has not been a transfer window of snapping up free agents. 

Chiefs will need points on the board and that will mean scoring more goals than they concede, winning games, doing it playing good football, and all of this starts with Gallants on Saturday.

Nabi has selection decisions to make from goalkeeper, defence, midfield and up front depending on what he has seen at training and availability related to injury and work permits. 

Of note is that this has been the longest wait that the Soweto giants have had to endure between two seasons throughout the PSL era years.

Chiefs played their last official match on May 25 when they suffered a 2-0 defeat to Cape Town Spurs.

By the time Amakhosi get back to the field on Saturday, it will have been 16 weeks since they last played a competitive match, making it the longest ever wait for the club.

This awkward situation that has given Nabi extra weeks has been necessitated by Chiefs’ failure to qualify for the MTN8 and the subsequent postponement of the start of the new league season following change of sponsors.

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Only twice before did the Naturena-based outfit have to wait longer between two campaigns and this was in 2002 and 2010 when Bafana Bafana went to the World Cup.

For now, the question facing Nabi will border on how well he has cooked his Chiefs team ahead of a season that will have the league, Carling Knockout and Nedbank Cup on offer in the bid to end the trophy drought.