Bafana Bafana legend Benni McCarthy has opened up over how he got into coaching following his illustrious playing career.
McCarthy had an impressive playing stint, winning titles in the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal and also played in the English Premier League as well as in the PSL with Orlando Pirates.
Bafana Bafana’s all-time leading scorer then made the transition to coaching upon retirement, getting his coaching badges, before his first job as head coach with Cape Town City after which he joined AmaZulu.
For two years, between July 2022 and June 2024, McCarthy worked at Premier League club Manchester United as the attacking coach, forming part of then manager Erik ten Hag’s backroom staff.
Now, he has taken on a new challenge as coach of Kenya’s national team Harambee Stars and he admits he would perhaps not have gotten into coaching were it not for a push from his Scottish wife Stacey.
“Once I started working on TV as an analyst, I obviously started spending more time going through the teams a lot more thoroughly, learning more about them so that I would be able to analyze them better,” McCarthy told Forbes Africa.
How was Benni convinced to take up coaching?
“I felt it came naturally, not knowing if it was because of my football background because I’d played and was familiar with team tactics.
“I found I was able to quickly figure out what sort of system the various managers wanted to play with the players they had at their disposal. People were very encouraging about my analysis, feeling it was on point.
“My wife said to me, ‘maybe this is what you should be doing? You’d still be in football, in and around with the players’. I had missed the camaraderie of the change room plus the discipline it brings to your life and the competitive edge it gives you. My wife convinced me.
“That’s when I decided to go and do my coaching badges because I didn’t want to be in a situation where people just do me favors because I was an ex-player. I felt I needed to educate myself and learn what I didn’t know.”
McCarthy says he did not want to get jobs just because of his name and decided to go to school to get his coaching badges.
He is grateful that he did that because it was an eye-opener and what he learned has since become vital in his coaching career.
Bafana legend grateful he had coaching training
“You think that if you’ve played in front of tens of thousands of people that you can handle it, but it’s a completely different kind of pressure,” he added.
“Having to speak in front of players, who are as good as you were, or even better, and convince them what you are trying to put across will make them even better… that’s a scary thought. I don’t think I would have survived without the training.
“It gave me the skill set on how to become more confident, to become a bit firmer, be able to speak out so that players can understand and buy into what you are saying. That’s what they teach you on these courses.”
McCarthy admits his two years at United were a great learning curve as he leant the amount of work that goes into succeeding at such a level and he is looking to translate it into his new job in East Africa.
“I think [Kenya is] a sleeping giant in my eyes. I looked at the project and they are a country that has a lot of potential,” McCarthy said.
“Their conversations with me were that there was a lot of respect and admiration for me and they think my mentality and mindset, my story coming from Africa, moving to Europe at such a young age to survive and flourish under difficult circumstances, is a story Kenyans can take from and take it one notch further.”
