The loss of Keagan Dolly and Siyethemba Sithebe is not a blow to Kaizer Chiefs—it is the first honest step toward redemption. For too long, Naturena has been a graveyard for reputation over production, where past glories or expensive price tags shielded underperformers from accountability. Dolly arrived in 2021 as a marquee signing, a Bafana Bafana stalwart with a pedigree from Montpellier. Yet in three seasons, he managed only eight league goals while missing 40% of matches through injury, his body betraying the €5 million wages that hung around the club’s neck like an anchor. Sithebe, meanwhile, was supposed to be the midfield metronome when he joined from AmaZulu. Instead, he became a phantom—too slow to press, too hesitant to pass forward, and too often caught ball-watching as opponents bypassed the Chiefs engine room. Their departures, whether by choice or design, signal that coach Nasreddine Nabi will no longer tolerate the comfort zone that has defined this squad’s culture.
Watch the tape from any of the 2023–24 fixtures where Chiefs dropped points against lower-table sides like Cape Town Spurs or Richards Bay. Dolly would drift out wide, receive the ball, then stop dead—killing counters while opposing defenders reset their shape. Sithebe’s sideways passes averaged 7.2 per game, but only 1.3 went into the final third. That is not football; that is insurance fraud disguised as professionalism. Compare that to the relentless verticality of Mamelodi Sundowns’ Teboho Mokoena or the driving carries of Orlando Pirates’ Miguel Timm. Chiefs have lacked that urgency because players like Dolly and Sithebe were allowed to coast on reputation, never pushed to replicate their training-ground excuses on match day. Nabi, who instilled a high-pressing machine at AS FAR Rabat, cannot build a winning