The three-week training camp provided an opportunity for Kaizer Chiefs‘ technical team to have a closer look at the young players to be merged with first-team experience, according to Sporting Director Kaizer Motaung Jr.
Wandile Duba, Mduduzi Tshabalala, Mfundo Vilakazi, Samkelo Zwane, Siphesihle Tati and Nkosana Mbuthu have all been discussed, with a few even being part of the pre-season camp in Turkey where they were able to rub shoulders with the senior players.
With the 2024/25 Betway Premiership set to start in September, Motaung Jnr was proud of what the young players have done and reckons the way forward is to let them gel with the rest of the more experienced ones under Nasreddine Nabi’s guidance.
“He [Nabi] had a few youth players with him and the technical staff to assess and look at,” the 42-year-old administrator told the media.
“And I think as time goes on, these next couple of weeks, it should give the technical staff as a whole time to look and see what’s in the academy, the level of certain players.”
Motaung Jnr also made mention of their academy success and how they are looking to integrate the young players with the senior squad.
“I think there has been a lot of great work from next door [academy],” he said.
“If you look at as recent as now, I mean our team won the Engen crown in Gauteng. They continue to do great work next door and we’re very proud of them.
“We’re even looking at some of the talent that was able to join us now in camp. We can see there’s a lot of hard work that’s going in and it’s just being able to merge that with the right experience and right quality on the first team level.
“That’s very key point for us right now. To take right experience that can be able to help them in this environment.
“We’ll be able to provide direction on where we are going with our academy,” he added.
After going down 4-0 to Yanga SC in the Toyota Cup last weekend, Chiefs are set to continue with their pre-season when they visit neighbours Botswana in the coming days.
