Kaizer Chiefs coach Nasreddine Nabi has admitted to being concerned ahead of the team's next fixture in the Carling Knockout.
Chiefs will be away to SuperSport United at the New Peter Mokaba Stadium on Saturday aiming to keep the momentum after winning the friendly CUFA Cup against Marumo Gallants in Free State last weekend.
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Against Gallants, Chiefs were without influential attacker Gaston Sirino owing to injury, and while Nabi is hopeful that the Uruguayan could make it against SuperSport in the all-important clash, the tactician is concerned about the players returning from international duty.
During the recent FIFA break as the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers took centre stage, Amakhosi had Rushwin Dortley with Bafana Bafana, and Fiacre Ntwari doing duty for Rwanda.
The Soweto giants also had Edson Castillo called up for Venezuela for their Conmebol World Cup qualifying campaign where he faced Lionel Messi's Argentina.
"It is always interesting to have a certain number of players in your team being part of the national team. It is an honour for us, and I'm sure that there are other players in our team that will have the opportunity to represent the national team. But having a game that is so close to their return from the national team that might also be a little bit of a challenge because you don't have enough time to give the players to recover and tactically prepare for the upcoming game," said Nabi, speaking to journalists through a translator during the Carling Knockout press conference in Johannesburg.
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"For instance, we have a player like Castillo who's only arriving today (Thursday) at 3pm so we don't know if he's going to have enough time to recover. And for Dortley, I heard that he's got an injury. So, all these issues we need to try and work around them and see how we can include them in the team and prepare for the game," the coach said.
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