The appointment of Cedric Kaze at Sekhukhune United and Khalil Ben Youssef at another unnamed Betway Premiership club is not a fresh chapter—it is a desperate reprint of a failed novel. South African football’s obsession with the so-called “Chiefs DNA” has become a tactical crutch for clubs too timid to design their own identity. Kaze and Ben Youssef were both architects of Kaizer Chiefs’ most sterile attacking football in a decade. Under their co-coaching tenure in the 2022–23 season, Chiefs averaged just 1.1 goals per match and finished fifth, 28 points behind Mamelodi Sundowns. Their system relied on defensive solidity without any coherent transition plan—a style that left Keagan Dolly isolated and Yusuf Maart unable to dictate tempo. Sekhukhune United, a club that finished seventh last season with 38 points, had a chance to build on the energetic counter-pressing Johan Dlamini briefly implemented. Instead, they have chosen a coach whose Amakhosi sides recorded a win percentage barely above 40%. That is not an upgrade; it is a lateral move into irrelevance.
The evidence that this recycling is a dead end sits in plain sight on the pitch. Watch Sekhukhune’s opening 45 minutes against Polokwane City last month: no vertical runs, no pressing triggers, just cautious sideways passing that invited City’s midfield to settle. Compare that to how Jose Riveiro’s Orlando Pirates dismantled the same opponent with rapid second-phase attacks driven by Monnapule Saleng’s movement off the right wing. Riveiro brought a European tactical structure—positional rotations, aggressive counter-pressing—that did not exist in the Betway Premiership before he arrived. Meanwhile, Kaze and Ben Youssef will replicate the same half-space conservatism that made Chiefs predictable. Sekhukhune’s forward Victor Letsoalo thrives on space behind defenders; under a Kaze system built for a low-risk approach, he might as well be static. The unnamed club hiring Ben Youssef is committing the same error: mistaking familiarity for competence.
The deeper implication is that the Betway Premiership’s tactical evolution is being held hostage by a romanticised view of a club—Kaizer Chiefs—that has not won a major trophy since 2015. Every recycled Chiefs assistant or co-coach brings the