Ben Youssef Khalil recently shared his experiences of facing a ‘culture shock’ while serving as a co-coach at Kaizer Chiefs. In his more than a decade-long coaching career, Khalil revealed that he had never encountered the concept of sharing a coaching role.
Following the departure of Nasredine Nabi, Kaizer Chiefs appointed Khalil alongside Cedric Kaze as co-coaches, both having been previous assistants under Nabi. Khalil expressed his surprise at the arrangement, stating, “The idea of a co-coach, I didn’t know before.” He added that in his 15 years of coaching, such pairings were uncommon, primarily consisting of a head coach and assistant coaches.
Khalil recalled first becoming aware of co-coaching during his time with AmaZulu when he observed it under coach Arthur Zwane. “I started to ask questions. Even me – it was difficult to understand, like who takes the decisions?” he noted, emphasizing the ambiguity that exists when two coaches share responsibilities.
Despite his initial reservations, Khalil affirmed that his collaboration with Kaze at Kaizer Chiefs was smooth, resulting in the team achieving a historic third-place finish in the Betway Premiership. “To be honest, we never had issues during the season; it was always fluent, we had similar ideas and thinking about the game plan,” he stated.