MATSHELANE MAMABOLO

Benni McCarthy is going to find it pretty hard to get his next job. Such was the experience of coaching at Manchester United that Bafana Bafana’s leading scorer wonders if he will be able to work anywhere else.

“The bad thing is that I have had a taste of it and now I want to have it all the time. It will be hard to dip; maybe you will never see me in football because of that,” McCarthy said in Sandton, Johannesburg, during a Carling Black Label Cup event yesterday.

A forwards coach at the Red Devils under manager Erik Ten Hag for two years, McCarthy waxed lyrical about the experience – saying it has got him setting his sights on much bigger goals now.

Papi Zothwane, Joseph Makhanya and Andile Ncube during the 2024 Carling Black Label Cup media day. | BackpagePix

“That’s why my ambitions are so high. What are the chances of someone from Hanover Park, from the Cape Flats – a coach from South Africa - to have a door opened for him to see how things look at Old Trafford or Carrington?

“I was there for two years, coaching there, and that made me realise that if you set yourself small goals, you will get those small goals. But if you set yourself big goals, you will work hard towards those goals.

My sights are set higher now,” he explained.

McCarthy describes his time at United as something extraordinary.

“Honestly, it was the best experience ever – a different level of professionalism; just a different level of everything. Everything is so much bigger.

“You are working with players that you don’t really need to tell anything to. They come there two or three hours before a training session. When the coach arrives, you see players are already in the gym prepping whatever they need to work on – their weakness – they work and then they ask you for extra help.”

This stands in stark contrast to his experience in the local Premiership, where he coached both Cape Town City and AmaZulu.

“When you come to South Africa you see, at 9am, everyone must be in the building, but 8.59am players are still trying to come in. It was a different kind of professionalism and, yeah, it opens your eyes to the standards that you want and you set for yourself,” he reflected.

Given that experience, McCarthy is now aiming to coach in the big leagues around the world, although he insists that the door is not completely closed on opportunities in his home country.

“My mindset is elsewhere, but I don’t close any doors to coming back or coming back home to Africa. But my ambitions are just high and that means it is the MLS, the (English) Premier League, the Championship or La Liga. I am not begging that SA take me; my ambitions are high above that,” he stated.

He added, “I’ve had three interviews with three different MLS clubs.

“Now, their season is finished. They are in a play-off final between LA Galaxy and New York Red Bulls – but it is off-season for the rest of the other clubs.

“The teams are assessing and interviewing coaches so that if a coach loses his job, they have replacements. I am in the frame, but I don’t want to discuss the names yet.”

McCarthy also clarified that he never received an offer for the Mamelodi Sundowns coaching job. He mentioned only a chance meeting with the Brazilians’ technical director, Flemming Berg, during which there was never a job offered to him.

“Honestly, I have not spoken to Sundowns. There have been rumours; when (Kaizer) Chiefs had no coach, they were saying Benni is coming to Chiefs.

“Rumours are rumours; don’t listen to the rumours. But no, I have not spoken to Sundowns – there’s been no dialogue between me and the team,” he concluded, though he confirmed he spoke with Berg about his career at Porto when they bumped into each other at an airport in London.

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