The real story of the weekend wasn’t just Kaizer Chiefs’ Carling Knockout exit—it was goalkeeper Fiacre Ntwari’s refusal to be substituted in the final moments of extra time of their Carling Knockout loss to Stellenbosch in Cape Town on Sunday.
The Rwanda international refused to come off in the last minute of extra time when his coaches Khaled Ben Youssef and Cedric Kaze wanted to bring on Bruce Bvuma for the expected penalty shootout. The matter will now be handled internally, according to the coaching staff.
Ntwari defiantly waved them away and Chiefs were unable to make the change before the final whistle.
Ntwari saved the first kick of the shootout from Andre de Jong but none of the resultant five kicks as Stellenbosch came from behind in the shootout to win 5-4 on kicks and advance to quarterfinal.
“I believe in those kinds of situations, it's something that we're going to handle internally, but, you know, he felt that he was comfortable to go on for the penalties and help the team,” Kaze said after the match.
“He was coming from a good intention. Maybe the way wasn't as good as it should be, but it's something that we will address,” he added.
Chiefs and Stellenbosch were goalless after two hours of football although the home side had Thapelo Mokobodi sent off with some 15 minutes left.
With the tie headed to post match spot kicks, Chiefs brought on Tashreeq Morris and Aiden McCarthy. McCarthy was substituted in with a minute left to take a penalty in place of Sibongiseni Mthethwa, who was initially ignored the board that went up with his number, turning his back on his bench as he also wanted to stay on.
I’ll never understand why coaches want to bring on substitutes so late in a game when they’re mentally not in active game mode. I’ve seen this before all over the world and don’t agree with it. Chiefs should have won this one during the 120 minutes. Ox was outstanding. Sage…
— Mike Makaab (@MikeMakaab) October 5, 2025
But after a minute he then reluctantly came off, allowing McCarthy to come. The youthful defender scored in the shootout but Tashreeq Morris, who was also brought on for the shootout, had his kick saved. Had he converted, Chiefs would have won but after Sage Stephens saved from Morris, the veteran goalkeeper then saved the next kick from Dillon Solomons to hand Stellenbosch success.
“I'm pretty sure that we were the better team for the 90 minutes and the extra time. We got the opportunities to go ahead,” Kaze insisted.
“We had shots, there was a good performance from the forwards, and they did everything they could. Unfortunately, we had even a chance to finish the penalties on but we missed it. It’s football and we have to go take a rest because it's been a very tough two weeks and regroup and for the next fixtures,” he added.