Kaizer Chiefs head coach Nasreddine Nabi has explained why some of his players were fatigued during pre-season matches.
Amakhosi were recently in the Netherlands for their pre-season training, where they played five matches against Dutch opponents. In those five matches, the Soweto giants only claimed one victory.
Nabi said the intense training session was a way to prepare Kaizer Chiefs players to deal with a tough schedule ahead of the 2025/26 season.
“One of the conditions of having a good season is having a good pre-season – that’s where the foundation is laid,” Nabi told the club‘s media.
“We didn’t only want quality opponents. We also wanted quantity. Parallel with this, we did some tough physical work at training, even doing double sessions on the day before a match.
Kaizer Chiefs to play in the CAF Confederation’s Cup
“We did this to have the players play games, feeling extremely fatigued. That was not only to prepare the team for the league season but also for the CAF Confederation Cup games, for which we will often have to travel for long hours. That’s when players will have to perform while feeling very tired,” he added.
“We even had two sessions the day after one of the friendlies, with the objective of getting the players mentally ready. That’s also why we organised back-to-back matches twice, playing a friendly two days in a row. It allowed us as well to give maximum opportunities to all the players to get minutes,” said the Kaizer Chiefs coach.
Amakhosi will play in front of their home crowd this pre-season when they play Asante Kotoko in the Toyota Cup next weekend.
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