Furious McCarthy gives his players a tongue lashing
"If I had a bundle of players to pick from, half of them who played would not play again in the team. That's how ill-discipline I think they were. Very unprofessional," those are the words of Cape Town City coach Benni McCarthy.
Benni McCarthy (Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix)
The City coach held nothing back following a thrilling 3-3 draw between SuperSport United and Cape Town City at the Mbombela Stadium on Saturday night. McCarthy said his players are still on “holiday” mode, and looking at how angry he was, McCarthy was short of calling them p**s — an expletive that trended on social media as EWN reporter Barry Bateman used the foul word to describe EFF leader Julius Malema earlier this week.
“At this level when you get a chance to beat a team you beat them. You don’t become sloppy and irresponsible and you don’t do what you’re supposed to do. You get paid to do it. You don’t do it because you like me or you don’t like me. You get paid to defend when you are supposed to defend, you get paid to score goals. The money that they get paid every month, they don’t give them for free, this is their job,” said McCarthy.
“I think we have got to apply ourselves much better as a football team. We are a very good footballing team but sometimes I think being a good footballing team ain’t just enough. We always sleep when we come out of the changing room and we wait for the opponent to score before we wake up then we want to play our game and give ourselves a mountain to climb.
“We go 2-1 up against SuperSport who are in the best form of their lives in a lot of seasons and we got them on the ropes and played football that they just couldn’t live with. And then boom, our mistake and then boom, they scored. It’s getting frustrating because as a coach you work on certain things and when you see players taking what you see in one ear and out in the next… what can you do,” the former Bafana Bafana star added.
Thabo Nodada was the Man-of-the-Match after he scored two goals. McCarthy wish the rest of his team performed like the 24-year-old midfielder.
“I wish I had 11 Thabo Nodadas on the pitch. My players know that I ain’t scared of any of them anyway. If we had more characters like Thabo, we would’ve walked over SuperSport. No disrespect towards them. South African players never learn. Talent will get you nowhere if you are not willing to work hard.”
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