Chiefs assistant coach Youssef on why the project is taking longer to shape up

As Kaizer Chiefs continue to blow hot and cold, assistant coach Khalil Ben Youssef says their Naturena project is taking longer than expected to shape up, largely because of injuries to key players. 

Youssef is part of the Chiefs technical team led by head coach Nasreddine Nabi, and they face the mammoth task of reviving the sleeping giant that has not won a major trophy in almost a decade. 

After the 14 matches they have played in the Betway Premiership so far, Amakhosi are in fifth spot with 21 points and have a mountain to climb before they can vie with the top teams.

Speaking as they prepared to host minnows Free Agents FC in the last 32 stage of the Nedbank Cup at FNB Stadium on Sunday, Youssef said they also needed time to understand the league. 

“When you start a new project, there are a lot of problems inside,” he said. 

“The first problem is that it is a different league. I was in a different leagues in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia and Morocco and this league is totally different to those leagues.” 

Youssef said a combination of injuries to key players, acclimatisation and trying to understand new players has contributed to their slow start to the campaign, which started with huge promise.

“For us it was tough and it took a lot of time to understand the league. We were unlucky with a lot of injuries and most of those were fractures. There are some players who are smart and you don't have to repeat things too many times to them.

“There are other players who you have to repeat things a lot of times because they don’t have the experience and background in tactics. We try to make individual meetings to explain to them how they must play.

"There are some players who play like there wasn't development and without tactics. It took a lot of time to understand the model of our game and to make the model of our game we have to make the same squad.

"There are lots of injury problems which started with Edmilson Dove, Edson Castillo, Gaston Sirino, Mshini (Nkosingiphile Ngcobo) and Bradley Cross. We are in a situation where every game we have to change, and when you change, sometimes you change the model of the game. 

"We have to work with them at training but sometimes we play in quick succession and we don’t have tome to explain everything to them. It was difficult for us."