By Mohlomi Maubane
SOWETO, South Africa — “Why the f**k did he not do that at West Ham!!!” reads a YouTube comment in response to the video clip above featuring Benni McCarthy’s superb free kick in the 2011 Telkom Cup quarterfinal between Orlando Pirates and Moroka Swallows. This is the best goal I have seen in the PSL era: an extraordinary strike in a tense match Pirates were losing by a goal to nil. And while Swallows players were still scratching their heads in bewilderment, he got a second and sealed the match.
West Ham were the last European team McCarthy played for in a chequered 14-year European career whose highlight was a 2004 UEFA Champions League medal with FC Porto under Jose Mourinho. A sometimes controversial character who had endless run-ins with the South African Football Association, Benni set tongues wagging in the local football scene when he decided to return to South Africa. Some critics believed he was over the hill while others knew he still had something to offer. The man himself said he still had a lot of football in him, and with the right service, he would excel. At Orlando Pirates, he found the perfect setting to shine although he would have to do it without Dutch coach Ruud Krol who had just left after three years at the helm.
The Mighty Bucs boasted one of the best squads in the country and were brimming with confidence after winning a treble the previous season. Krol’s long term (at least in South African terms) afforded him the required time to build a team and mould plentiful talent in service of the collective. Team-play became paramount above all else, and prima donnas were booted out. The defense became mean. Opponents learned the hard way that beating Pirates meant playing to the final whistle. For example, in a November league game against Swallows. The Dube Birds looked set for a 1-0 victory, but as my friend Katiso Motaung wryly noted, Pirates managed to turn defense into attack and Jele equalized in the nanoseconds it took the referee to lift the whistle to his mouth to blow full time.
Tag: Benni McCarthy
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Benni Leads Orlando Pirates to PSL Title
Benni McCarthy’s two second-half goals earned Orlando Pirates their second consecutive Premier Soccer League title. It was sweet revenge for McCarthy writes Rodney Reiners in the Cape Argus, “He’s been put down, trampled on, ridiculed, and dismissed as an over-weight, over-rated charlatan more often than any footballer should have to endure. Yet, each time, the 34-year-old Cape Town-born striker has come back to splatter copious bowls of beaten egg on the faces of his critics.”
McCarthy — the most prolific scorer in Bafana Bafana’s history — has experienced a rebirth since the humiliation of being left off the 2010 World Cup squad for lack of fitness (see photo).
Pirates went into the tense closing Saturday with a two-point lead over Soweto rivals Moroka Swallows. Both contenders took care of business in their away matches in KwaZulu-Natal: Bucs beating Golden Arrows 4-2 at Durban’s monumental but seldom-used Moses Mabhida stadium (highlights here); The Birds winning 1-0 at Maritzburg United’s more humble and intimate Harry Gwala stadium.
Smiling broadly, Benni McCarthy told Ryan Cooper of Kick Off magazine: “I’m doing the thing I love most, and that is playing football. The haters out there . . . next year I’m gonna keep coming back with more!”
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Goal of the Week: South African bicycle
By Simone Poliandri
Orlando Pirates striker Benni McCarthy scored the winning goal against Maritzburg United with a spectacular bicycle kick in the 75th minute. The game, played at Orlando Stadium on Sunday, February 25, saw Pirates prevail 1-0. The win placed Pirates level with second-placed Kaizer Chiefs on 33 points, just three behind leaders Sundowns in the Premier Soccer League of South Africa. McCarthy dedicated his fabulous goal to ailing former president Nelson Mandela.
Hosts South Africa has to win or draw against Spain in their final group match of the Confederations Cup tomorrow to go through to the semi-final round. Red Star Belgrade (of Bulgaria) striker Bernard Parker has been central to his team’s fortunes thus far:
First, bizarrely preventing his own team from scoring in their first group game against Iraq (watch for yourself) and then scoring twice against the very weak New Zealand team (see the video above).
If Parker plays well tomorrow (and even better, scores) in a tournament which is certainly the last competitive games South Africa will play before the World Cup, he will certainly improve his chances to be the permanent replacement for the out of favor, and off-form, Benni McCarthy.