Mamelodi Sundowns senior coach Steve Komphela is impressed by the job coach Nasreddine Nabi is doing at Kaizer Chiefs ahead of the two teams’ meeting on Saturday.
Sundowns visit Chiefs in the Carling Knockout quarter-final at the FNB Stadium and Komphela says they are facing a transformed team thanks to the Tunisian mentor, who arrived at the club in July.
“You need to go to that level of also looking at what has changed, what are they doing and I don’t think it will be very professional of me to come here and do an assessment of our opponents,” Komphela told the media on Thursday.
“They do have their strengths, they do have their weaknesses but there has been a significant element of belief, positiveness, there is aura, there is energy that you feel.”
Chiefs will soon put everybody under pressure
Chiefs have won three, lost two and drawn one of their six matches in all competitions but Komphela feels they are on their way up, which will make the rest pull up their socks, including his team, who felt their force when the two sides clashed in September.
“That energy comes from the results they acquired and how they see things unfolding. There is hope that this thing is going to click and it is good to see that because when that happens, it puts everybody under pressure,” he added.
“All the teams in the league who wish to be at the top spot, they will buckle up and make this point that; ‘eh these people are coming.’ It is more of a way of pushing everybody to improve their game. So, it benefits everybody, not only themselves but also the league.
“Indeed, we feel them and we felt them at FNB, we knew that. In the last 15 minutes, you could feel they changed even though we know we could and should have done better but whatever it was, we know,” said Komphela.
Who will rise to the occasion at a packed FNB?
“But do you go into a match at the back of a good 75 minutes and stick to that template and expectation or do you go to the match now with the panic and anxiety of the last 15 minutes? Those are all things we have to factor in.”
Reflecting on Saturday’s match, Komphela says Sundowns learnt a lot from their display with Chiefs last month but with the stadium expected to be sold out, he feels it could be down to which team handles the atmosphere well.
“It is not going to be an easy match and I am sure you saw them in Polokwane when they played SuperSport, you saw them yesterday [Wednesday against Magesi] and we still remember what happened when we played them at FNB. It is going to be packed. That stadium will be yellow and black and blue and you have to perform,” said the former Chiefs coach.
“Players get affected by such environments but big players love such environments and the players who get intimidated, the environment swallows them. So, we need to work not just on technical and tactical preparations and all that, but it is going to be more psychological as well.”
