Of all the coaches that have ever taken charge of Kaizer Chiefs, Nasreddine Nabi has suddenly found himself awarded the cushion of time in preparing for the new season.
Nabi has had a pile of issues to deal with since taking over what will be the toughest job that he has ever held throughout the last decade.
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Of note is that Nabi never had time in the jobs he held in Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Italy and Sudan again and only got to settle when he went to Tanzania, where his two years at Young Africans laid the foundation for his move to Chiefs, though via a season-long stay in Morocco.
While the Chiefs job has come with the club having fallen to their lowest point in history as they deal with a trophy drought now threatening to tip the decade mark, Nabi has found himself with 'all the time in the world'.
For all the coaches that the club has appointed at the start of a new season through the PSL-era years, none of them have had a pre-season stretching so long, be it Paul Dolezar, Muhsin Ertugral, Ted Dumitru, Ernst Middendorp, Vladimir Vermezovic, Stuart Baxter, Steve Komphela, Giovanni Solinas, Gavin Hunt, Arthur Zwane or Molefi Ntseki.
By the time Chiefs play their first official match on September 14 against Marumo Gallants, Nabi will have had a good 10 weeks in pre-season.
Though Amakhosi started their pre-season on June 24, Nabi only joined them in Turkey on July 7 after the completion of his duties at FAR Rabat.
Since then, he has rolled his sleeves in seeking to find solutions to all the issues that he found at the club after their 10th place finish last season.
His biggest worry has come with both the mentality and quality of the squad that he has adopted and with all this time on his hands has gone through the pick-and-shovel work.
To date, the only match played in front of the public's eyes was the Toyota Cup humiliation by Yanga three weeks ago.
Another three weeks plus remains to the opening league match of the Betway Premiership, which will be played a week before the transfer window closes on September 20.
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Whatever Nabi chooses to do with all this time in pre-season, he will be judged upon the start of the season with the Amakhosi faithful pleading for vast improvements from what they endured last season.
At least nine days of the time that remains before Chiefs play their first game will be swallowed by the FIFA calendar dates to run from September 2-10, with Nabi minus his internationals, who include new signing Fiacre Ntwari.