On Sunday night, Kaizer Chiefs reached their 20th Nedbank Cup final, but it was also a momentous one for their head coach Nasreddine Nabi who edged his name into the club’s history books.
Amakhosi refused to be beaten for the fourth time in a single season by the ever-dominant Mamelodi Sundowns who had already claimed three huge wins in the Carling Knockout Cup and twice in the Betway Premiership.
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This was Amakhosi’s first Ke Yona cup final since that fateful night in 2019 at Moses Mabhida Stadium when they lost to TS Galaxy who were campaigning in the first division at the time and needed a 90th-minute penalty from Orlando Pirates loanee Zakhele Lepasa to stun the ‘cup kings’ of South African football.
The 59-year-old Tunisian mentor, who was roped in at the beginning of the season to awaken the sleeping giant, could write even more history for himself with silverware in his debut season, but will first need to overcome the ‘owners’ of the Nedbank Cup, Pirates, who have now reached their third consecutive final having achieved success in the previous two.
Nabi is the first North African coach to lead Chiefs to a domestic cup final and the fourth Amakhosi coach in the PSL era to reach the Nedbank Cup Final in his first season at Naturena after Muhsin Ertugral in 1999/00, Ernst Middendorp (2005/06 and 2018/19), as well as Stuart Baxter in (2012-13), who was the last to win it for the club.
This is also the fifth season in a row that Nabi has reached the domestic cup final having done three consecutive Tanzanian Cup Finals, The Moroccan Throne Cup Final and now the cup of dreams.
By adding South Africa to Congo, Tanzania and Morocco, the Amakhosi mentor also reached a domestic cup final in four different countries.
