Cedric Kaze hits back at Kaizer Chiefs critics: 'Judge us at season’s end'

Cedric Kaze is finally standing up for the under-fire Kaizer Chiefs technical team, knowing they are not everyone’s cup of tea and that Rome wasn’t built in a day, while insisting they will bask in the glory of their success at the end of the season.

Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef have been steering Chiefs’ ship since the early part of the season. Their appointment was bizarre, given that the club decided to retain them after sacking their superior and head coach, Nasreddine Nabi.

They have done their bit to show that they are the right men for the job, guiding Amakhosi to third place in the Betway Premiership with 16 games to go, as well as qualification for the CAF Confederation Cup group stage.

Still, they have attracted more naysayers than admirers. There remains a large group of Amakhosi faithful, fellow coaches, and pundits who feel they are out of their depth and do not have what it takes to coach a club of Chiefs’ calibre.

Critics add that while the duo have the credentials to coach some of the biggest clubs on the continent, coupled with a solid coaching track record, their most notable success came under Nabi - making it more confusing why the club decided to retain them.

Kaze, in particular, has been heavily scrutinised, with many feeling that he is more of an interpreter than a coach, having doubled up in the interpretation and assistance roles under the Tunisian.

The soft-spoken Congolese, after their 1–0 win over Lamontville Golden Arrows during their league restart at FNB Stadium on Tuesday night, wore a defiant tone, declaring that he and the rest of the technical team are not at the club by chance.

“I don’t feel that I am not trusted. Instead, I feel very supported within the team - the management, the players, and all the colleagues around us,” Kaze said. “Sometimes, I feel it’s the ‘outside people’ who try to create things.

“I would say there is also a lack of respect when talking about a position when there is already a coach in place, with some people saying, ‘I will make them champions,’ but when you look at the history of that coach, he has never done that before.

“We know what we are doing, and we are qualified. I am giving you until the end of the season. We’ll meet, and I am pretty sure everyone will apologise.”

While promising his detractors will eat humble pie at the end of the season, Kaze is not naïve enough to think that Rome was built in one day. Chiefs might be on an eight-game unbeaten run in the league, but that does not mean they are outright contenders for the title.

“I think the last time the team won the league was in 2015, and in the last two seasons, we were not even in the Top 8,” Kaze reflected.

“I think we need to be realistic and, firstly, stay in the pack of the leading teams. It’s still early January; we need to take it game by game and stay in that pack. Everywhere, the league is decided in April or at the beginning of May.

“But we know that we are going to compete game by game. Now, we are going to focus on our next game in the CAF Confederation Cup. There are a lot of things that can happen between now and May, but we know what we want. With the squad that we have, we are going to compete in every game.”

Kaze also acknowledged that just because goalkeeper Brandon Petersen has kept 10 clean sheets in 14 league games does not mean they are a well-oiled machine - especially with a blunt attack.

“I wouldn’t say that’s a concern, as long as we have the three points,” Kaze initially said of their poor conversion rate. “We need to make more of the interesting situations that we have.

“I believe that clinical finishing will come with time and confidence. We need to have a killer instinct in the final third.”