With pre-season preparations looming on the horizon, a South African giant appears to be casting their recruitment net wider as they explore potential reinforcements for their attacking options.
A Siya source operating across East African leagues with connections to both parties has revealed to Soccer Laduma that Kaizer Chiefs coach Nasreddine Nabi and scout Tera Maliwa have recommended that the club should look at another Tanzanian-based player if they cannot secure some of their primary targets.
The continental football indicated that the winger the Amakhosi officials were impressed with is Yanga SC's Congolese-born player Maxi Nzengeli, who coach Nabi signed when he was still at the Tanzanian giants. Nabi had already had the player in mind during his first season at Chiefs, but current circumstances could lead to Nzengeli becoming an actual target now.
"At the moment the club has not yet signed some of the players who they want nor those they are looking at. It's believed that they are spreading the search wide so that they can get the kind of players they really need this season. Apparently Maxwell Nzengeli is one player they are also looking at. Coach Nabi knows him already and the scouts and recruiters are also believed to have liked him and are looking at the possibility of getting him depending on the conditions around the transfer," the source told Soccer Laduma.
Meanwhile, a Naturena insider with knowledge of the club's pre-season planning stated that the club is working hard behind the scenes to have new signings in before the end of the month so that they can join them in Europe.
"The players are expected to return to the club for pre-season training at the end of the month so that they can prepare for the trip to Holland and the team is working hard to have new signings available for the European trip. So it's believed that by the first week of July most of the new signings will be unveiled," the second insider told the Siya crew.
Nzengeli is a 25-year-old winger who could bring a different dimension to Chiefs. Soccer Laduma contacted Chiefs for an official comment on the situation but there was no response at the time of publishing this story.
The emergence of Nzengeli as a potential target highlights Nabi's willingness to leverage his extensive East African connections to strengthen Amakhosi. The Congolese winger would represent a known quantity for the coach. With Chiefs seemingly working on multiple transfer targets simultaneously, the coming weeks should provide clarity on which of these prospects materialises into actual signings before the squad departs for their European camp.
