Kaizer Chiefs co-coach Khalil Ben Youssef has called out the unsavoury scenes before the kickoff of the Soweto Derby on Sunday afternoon that ended 1-1 at FNB Stadium.
With the sold out affair being delayed twice, from 15h00 to 15h30 and then to 15h45, and during the warm-up there were several scuffles that broke out and eventually broken down by police and Amakhosi went on to leave their warm-up preparation to return to the dressing room.
They returned to the field of play 10 minutes later, where it was business as usual from thereon in but it was a incident that did raise alarm bells, which Ben Youssef says is not a way for the spectacle that is viewed by millions should be exposed to.
“I’m not from South Africa but I know how many people watch the game, how many people were waiting, how many calls I received – they asked where they can watch the game.
“And I think what happened before the game is something we can’t accept. We are sending a bad picture about our football.
“People are waiting to see the football, but what we saw before the game we can’t accept. I think if you want to win the league, if you want to lead the teams, you have to win with football, not like that.
“It’s about safety, we spoke about safety. People from outside come and fight with our players, in our warm-up in our half.
“I think this kind of think is a shame, we can’t accept this kind of situation. Like I said if you want to win the league, win it with football and then people will say you deserve to win the league. Not like that you can win the league.”
‘We Deserved To Win This Game’
Ben Youssef then switched his focus on the game, saying his side’s game plan worked well and they would;d have deserved the three points.
“About the game, I think the plan that was developed from early in the week,”
“We know that the target of Orlando Pirates is zone 14, the space between the lines, and they use a lot Moremi, Mofokeng and Appollis, that’s why we used Ox, to give us more balance.
“We tried in the first half just to contain and I think it was more of a battle in the first half, physical battle. We were there and showed a very good performance,” he added.
“Because after what happened before the game, the players showed character. It didn’t disturb us and we focussed on the game.
“In the second half, we put Shabalala for Ox, because we knew they came to our half and leave a lot of space behind. That’s what we discussed at half-time, immediately when we recover the ball to play in the deep.
“I think we deserved to win the game, unfortunately in this kind of game if you make a small mistake you play cash. Today, I think we made one mistake and conceded the goal.
“I’m so happy about the performance of the players, even the players who were not in the team, they came in and showed a good performance.
“I’m not happy about the result, I think we deserved to win the game.”
