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Benedict Saul “Benni” McCarthy has all the hallmarks of a future Bafana Bafana coach.
Once labelled an enfant terrible because of his clashes with SA Football Association officials, as well as picking and choosing the Bafana games in which he would play, his heroics and football credentials on the field were never in doubt.
McCarthy made his professional debut as a spindly-legged 17-year-old for Seven Stars (which later morphed into Ajax Cape Town), terrorising defenders from the word go.
By the “tender age of 21” (by South African standards), Jomo “Troublemaker” Sono roped him into the Bafana Bafana squad that went to Burkina Faso to defend the Africa Cup of Nations title they had won two years earlier on home soil.
He did not disappoint, but showed his gratitude to Mjomane the only way he knew how – by banging in four goals on debut against Namibia.
That was the beginning of a long, winding and sometimes topsy-turvy relationship with Bafana that could easily be referred to as a love-hate affair.
But, through it all, whenever he was available or, as the song that was composed about him, whenever “Benni Is [was] In the 18 Area”, he knocked them in.
It is not surprising that he remains Bafana Bafana’s all-time leading goalscorer with 31 strikes to his name.
From making his Bafana debut, he never looked back and, as is the norm in football, he was soon gracing some of the most famous European stadiums and kept on scoring the goals.
He belongs to a special group of South African footballers who had long spells in Europe, such as the late Steven “Kalamazoo” Mokone, Albert “Hurry Hurry” Johanneson (the only South African to play in an FA Cup final), Lucas Radebe, Chippa Masinga, Mark Fish, Shaun Bartlett, Aaron Mokoena and Steven Pienaar, to name but a few.
But one other thing that sets him apart from this elite group is that he remains the only South African footballer to have won the European football Holy Grail, the Uefa Champions League, with Porto in 2004 under the tutelage of the once “Special One”, José Mourinho.
At the end of his career, he returned home and, unlike many overseas returnees, continued where he had left off by scoring important goals for Orlando Pirates.
He was in the squad that won the Telkom Knockout Cup in his first season and followed with an MTN8, Telkom KO Cup and league treble in his second season.
McCarthy said that just because he was a great player, he couldn’t simply jump into coaching and be a know-it-all, like others who have done so to their detriment.
He went to Scotland and studied coaching, coming out with a Uefa A Licence which his mentor, Gavin Hunt of Bidvest Wits, also holds.
Other coaches in the domestic game with Uefa Pro Licences are Muhsin Ertugral, Ernst Middendorp, Stuart Baxter, as well as South Africans Zeca Marques and Mich d’Avray.
A big up to Cape Town City boss John Comitis (forever a visionary) for giving an untested Benni, who turns 41 on November 12, his first break at coaching last season.
And the returns have not been too shabby, either. What with a fifth-place finish in the league, losing in the MTN8 final to SuperSport United, a result he reversed a fortnight ago by winning the same cup against the same opposition.
Save for the tantrums that he still tends to have, throwing his toys out the cot like a spoilt brat at the end of matches, McCarthy is just as rough a coaching diamond as he was a rough player when he turned professional at 17.
With time and becoming mellow, I feel he can become a great Bafana Bafana coach ... that if is we don’t lose him to some overseas country.
Follow me on Twitter @Sbu_Mseleku
