Mamelodi Sundowns senior coach Steve Komphela has highlighted the significant changes at Kaizer Chiefs under the guidance of the highly-rated tactician Nasreddine Nabi.
Chiefs appointed Nabi as their head coach ahead of the 2024/25 Betway Premiership season, bringing his own technical team in an effort to improve upon their disappointing 10th-place finish last season.
The highly-rated tactician has had a positive start to the new season as Chiefs are playing an enterprising brand of football. In the Betway Premiership, Chiefs have won two matches, drew once and lost twice in five matches so far. They are currently sitting eighth on the log standings with seven points.
Meanwhile, the Soweto giants are also in the quarter-finals of the 2024 Carling Knockout Cup after thrashing SuperSport United 4-0 in the round of 16.
Chiefs are going to face Sundowns in a mouth-watering encounter in the last eight of the competition at FNB Stadium on Saturday, 02 November 2024.
The two giants already clashed a few weeks ago in the Premiership, where Masandawana claimed an entertaining 3-2 victory in Soweto.
STEVE KOMPHELA ADMITS THERE’S RENEWED POSITIVE ENERGY AT CHIEFS
Speaking to the media at the PSL headquarters in Parktown on Thursday, Komphela, who initially hesitated to comment on Chiefs, assessed the club and noted a renewed positive energy and a good aura since the arrival of Nabi.
“I don’t think it will be professional of me to come here and do an assessment of our opponent. They do have their strength, and they do have their weaknesses, but there has been a significant element of belief, positiveness, there’s an aura, and there is energy that you feel,” Komphela said.
“And that energy comes from the results they acquired and how they see things unfolding. There’s hope that this thing is going to click.
“It’s good to see that because when that happens you put everybody under pressure, all teams in the league that wish to be in the top spot will buckle up and say these people are coming.
“So it is a way of pushing everyone to improve the game; it benefits everybody, not only themselves, and we felt them at FNB stadium, the last 15 minutes, you could feel the change, and surely, it’s not going to be an easy match for us. I’m sure you saw them in Polokwane when they played SuperSport United; you saw them yesterday against Magesi.”
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