Kaizer Chiefs tactician Nasreddine Nabi is determined to win the Carling Knockout and end the club’s nine-season trophy drought, insisting the fact that they were still building does not mean they mustn’t be ambitious.
Chiefs face SuperSport United in the first round of the Knockout at Peter Mokaba Stadium on Saturday (8pm). It will be Nabi’s first cup competition game at Chiefs since his arrival in the off-season, having just overseen three league fixtures, where he won two and lost one. Amakhosi last won a trophy when they were crowned Premier Soccer League champions in the 2014/15 term.
“The fact that we are building the team doesn’t stop us from having a winning mentality. We approach every game with a winning mentality ... whether it’s a cup or a championship itself, it doesn’t matter,” Nabi told a press conference on Thursday.
“We don’t want to hide behind the fact that we are building and the results are secondary. No, I am promising the fans that all the games, regardless of the competition, we are going to make sure we give our best shot and give a good result.”
The Amakhosi coach also emphasised the importance of Gaston Sirino in the team after he missed the Cufe Cup clash against Marumo Gallants last Sunday due to a muscle injury he picked up against his former side Mamelodi Sundowns the previous Saturday. Nabi hopes Sirino will feature on Saturday, albeit doubting he can start and finish the game.
“You’ll notice that we actually felt the absence of Sirino in our last game, so that shows his importance in the team. Maybe he hasn’t fully recovered but we’re at least trying to count on him in our next game. Maybe he won’t play the whole 90 minutes but he will see how much he can give us in that game,” Nabi said.
The coach also revealed they were sweating over the state of readiness of Edson Castillo and Rushwin Dortley, who were away on international duty with Venezuela and Bafana Bafana respectively.
“Castillo is only arriving today [Thursday] at 3pm [from Venezuela after being an unused sub in their 2-1 defeat away to Uruguay in World Cup qualifier on Wednesday. We don’t know if he’s going to have enough chance to recover, and Dortley... I heard he’s got an injury [in Bafana’s Afcon qualifier against Congo on Tuesday]. So we need to work about these issues and see if they can be included in the team or not,” Nabi said.
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