Ben Youssef apologises after late Stellenbosch blow stuns Chiefs

This was Chiefs’ third loss in their last four matches and saw the gap between them and the top two teams (Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates) widening.

Chiefs had a good first half and led through Flavio Silva’s goal, but in the second half, the visitors were in control, scoring through Langelihle Phili and Devin Titus.

"Firstly, we have to apologise to our fans for this result. I think we dominated the first half, we were better than the opposition and created a lot of opportunities. When you are better than the other team and you get opportunities, you have to score but we missed those opportunities and then we started the second half very badly."

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For the first time in 27 matches, Chiefs finally handed a debut to midfielder Ethan Chislett, who performed well, offering the team options going forward with his slick passes and movements in the no.10 role.

When asked why he had been kept out of the team for this long, Ben Youssef responded in his usual manner...

"The answer to why we took seven months to introduce him is we wanted him to be good like today."

Midway through the second half, when Stellenbosch had taken total control of the game, Chiefs made four changes, bringing on Mduduzi Shabalala, Mfundo Viilakazi, Thabo Cele and Wandile Duba for Chislett, Nkosingiphile Ngcobo, Silva and Aashley du Preez.

These changes didn’t yield any positive result and Ben Youssef conceded that they are to blame for that...

Ahead of the much-anticipated Soweto Derby, Chiefs have now lost three of their last four matches, including two losses to Gavin Hunt’s team in a space of one month.

The technical team has a mammoth task ahead of them to prepare a team that’s down in confidence for the big game against their arch-rivals, Orlando Pirates.

A player like Asanele Velebhayi, who has always looked threatening whenever given a chance, has not featured in the team in the last five matches.

Ben Youssef was asked about him and Luke Baartman, asking why they are not playing.

Could it be a tactical decision or injury-related? There was once again an unsatisfactory response from the Tunisian coach...

"Unfortunately in football we can only use eleven players with nine substitutes, so if we have to discuss this in every press conference we cannot provide a solution. The only solution is if FIFA allows us to play with 20 players."