Kaizer Chiefs coach Nabi on Orlando Pirates penalty: ‘I will not talk anymore about this kind of refereeing’

Kaizer Chiefs’ Tunisian coach Nasreddine Nabi was livid with the referee for awarding Orlando Pirates a penalty which proved to be the decider in Saturday’s 1-0 Soweto Derby result at the FNB Stadium.

Speaking via his assistant coach and interpreter Cedric Kaze at the post-match SuperSport TV interview, Nabi declared: “It was a zero-zero match.”

This remark suggests that Nabi felt the eventual result should have been a goalless draw, after Patrick Maswanganyi converted the spot-kick with a ‘panenka’ in the sixth minute of stoppage time.

SuperSport presenter Thomas Mlambo, who conducted the pitch-side interview, asked Nabi about the controversial penalty.

“I will not talk anymore about this kind of refereeing. You will see in your studio if it was a penalty or not,” said Nabi, who was clearly seething at the thought that his side were denied by referee Masixole Bambiso, who awarded Pirates a penalty deep into injury time.

Nabi felt Chiefs had matched Pirates pound for pound, and they didn’t deserve to lose the game.

“It’s true that we gave them a lot of problems, especially in pressing, so that they were not comfortable scoring goals. We know Pirates are a very technical team.

“At some point, Pirates were playing a lot of long balls.

“There were some good moments for us and there were some good moments for them too. We firmly believe that this was a game that we didn’t deserve to lose.”

Saturday’s match proved to be a baptism of fire for Nabi.

“I was very happy to be here. We wanted to win,” he said.

“When I look at the 90 minutes of football today and what the fans got to experience, it was good.

“We think that we were good in the game. Unfortunately, the last-minute penalty was a little controversial.

“Overall, we (the Chiefs coaches) are happy with the performance of the team and all the players. We expected to get more from this game.”