Compassionate leave does not hinder Nabi role in team prep - Ben Youssef
18th August 2025
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Kaizer Chiefs assistant coach Khalil Ben Youssef has reiterated that head coach Nasreddine Nabi, who is away on compassionate leave, attending to his injured wife in Tunisia, remains fully involved with the technical team’s planning for the games.
After the first two wins in the Betway Premiership against Stellenbosch FC and Polokwane City, with Nabi still away, there have been murmurs from a certain section of the fans that Chiefs are winning in his absence.
But Ben Youssef set the record straight again during a media open day at Naturena Village this morning.
"I think at this point we are not discussing whether the coach is here or not here, as the technical staff we are a family, we work together. We keep contact everyday, every training session we discuss, we are in Zoom meetings everyday, we discuss about all the plans, we prepare the game together and coach Nabi is not here physically but he's with us,” Ben Youssef said.
“We work together, we are a team, we help each other and we don't think about who's here, who's not here because we are all technical staff, working together."
SABC Sport understands Coach Nabi will be returning this week and should be available to sit on the dugout against Mamelodi Sundowns next week.
As evidenced in their last game against City, Chiefs had to deal with a low-block, which Ben Youssef highlights as having always given them problems against specific teams.
With clubs not having the same quality of players or squads, opposition coaches resort to these tactics not to expose themselves and make use of quick counterattacks against the well-resourced opponents.
This is something Ben Youssef says they need to master.
"When we win one game, the next game will be tough for us, firstly and secondly, we always find problems with the team when they play against us with low blocks. Our target this season is to keep our players mentally always ready for the next game,” he added.
“We try to take each game like a cup game and we decide to take it game by game, we don't think about the next game now. For example, tomorrow we have Richards Bay, we'll mentally focus on Richards Bay and then when we finish this game, we'll think about the next game."
