Stellenbosch coach Steve Barker has accused the Kaizer Chiefs technical team led by Nasreddine Nabi of creating what he termed as ‘chaos'.
The Glamour Boys hosted Stellies in the Premier Soccer League assignment staged at the FNB Stadium on Wednesday night. While leading 2-1, the hosts called for a change; they were preparing George Matlou to come on.
However, the situation took a long time, prompting Barker to claim ‘the not-so-good Chiefs' were trying to slow down the game in their bid to get maximum points.
Nabi and his assistants created Chaos
The Stellenbosch coach believes the Glamour Boys were buying time to ensure the see out the game, and get the three points they desperately needed at the FNB Stadium after an initial 1-0 loss against Cape Town City.
“I don't know to think Kaizer Chiefs would not have been good enough to score against us had we not made our errors which basically led to the first and second goal,” he told the media.
“Then after we tried to get ourselves back into the game. The last 15-20 minutes unfortunately became a lot of stop-start, a lot of cramps, a lot of slowing down the game, a lot of chaotic [incidents].
“The opposition [Chiefs] staff on the bench created chaos that was needed for them to see out the game,” Barker concluded.
The word ‘chaos' is not appropriate – Nabi
Chiefs coach Nasreddine Nabi has since clarified what happened, “First of all, I don’t think the word chaos is appropriate. There was confusion at the end because there were some substitutions that were not planned. I can give you an example, Mduduzi Shabalala was going to come off, George Matlou was going to come in,” the former Young Africans coach stated.
“As well, we were going to sub Shabalala and Wandile Duba. He went out but didn’t come back. Before, sub Shabalala, Yusuf Maart complained about cramps and George Matlou was already ready to go on the field which we had to recall.
“We had to recall the substitutes on the bench, for example, the bench even Happy [Mashiane] he wasn’t gonna come in but [Thatayaone Ditlhokwe] complained about the cramps. This means, the staff, everyone is gonna need to do his job – One is going to ask TT if he can still continue. The other one, he needs to prepare Happy in case TT cannot.
“The other one is going to recall the change that we had to make for Shabalala because now Yusuf Maart is not ready to continue. And that’s what happened. It was not chaos. There was a little bit of confusion due to injuries that were not planned,” Nabi concluded.
