Don’t look Benni’s gift horse in mouth

Cape Town City are fast-emerging as the most exciting team in this season’s Absa Premiership and if they can beat Mamelodi Sundowns this evening in the Mother City, there will be no room left for Benni McCarthy to play it coy, to ham up the role of the underdog that does not give itself a chance of lifting Mzansi football’s ultimate prize.

McCarthy’s continuous ruling out of his own side as title challengers reminds me a bit of Jose Mourinho, when he referred to Chelsea as a “little horse” in the race for the 2013/14 English Premier League title with Manchester City and Liverpool. No one was really buying it, even though Chelsea did ultimately finish third in the table. McCarthy, of course, played for Jose Mourinho at FC Porto, winning the Uefa Champions League and is very likely to have learned plenty from the Portuguese mentor to take into his role at City.

In his first season in charge, McCarthy did well to steer City into a cup final, though they lost out in the Nedbank Cup to SuperSport United and this season they have already gone one better, beating SuperSport in the final to lift the MTN8. Slowly but surely, City are starting to bear the imprint of McCarthy in attack too, seemingly more and more clinical in their finishing as the year goes on.

Bafana’s leading all-time goalscorer has to have played a role in this and his side have scored more goals than any other in the league this season, their tally of 37 five more than Orlando Pirates. City have also conceded more than any other team in the Premiership’s top ten, it must be said, a statistic that would make Mourinho cringe, but it simply adds to a sense of excitement whenever City step out onto a pitch these days.

City’s last three matches have ended with a result of 3-2, two of them in favour of McCarthy’s side. Since the start of the year, City have scored 22 goals in ten matches, a healthy scoring rate of 2.2 goals a game and this is despite losing a star player, Ayanda Patosi, to the Iranian Pro League. Kermit Erasmus has started to fire, while Siphelele Mthembu has also done well under McCarthy’s watch and there is plenty of trickery too in the form of Surprise Ralani and Gift Links.

City are very active in the transfer market too, recently bringing in Travis Graham and Christopher David.

In some sense, McCarthy has it much easier than the other coaches in the running for the title. Pitso Mosimane, Milutin Sredojevic and even Gavin Hunt are under far more weight of expectation than City are in terms of lifting the Premiership crown. Perhaps City can sneak through and surprise everyone.

In this week’s Phakaaathi, we hear from Mosimane after Sundowns’ draw with Bloemfontein Celtic and from Sredojevic on Pirates’ attitude to the title race. We also hear from Kaizer Chiefs coach Ernst Middendorp, whose assertion that Amakhosi can win the title does seem a little optimistic.

Kgotso Moleko, the Kaizer Chiefs right back, and finally getting another run in the first team, also gives his assessment in our regular One-on-One section.

In our Women in Football section, we speak to Kaylin Swart, the Banyana Banyana goalkeeper looking forward to competing in the World Cup later this year.

Finally, I urge all readers to enter our Player-of-the-Month competition on Page 7, for a chance to win R350 in airtime.

Readers can also still enter our Phakaaathi Private Fantasy League for a chance to win great monthly prizes, by following the rules in the advert on Page 9.

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