Benni McCarthy joins Manchester United

Former Bafana Bafana striker Benni McCarthy has joined Manchester United as a striker’s coach.

The news of McCarthy’s next job was broken by sports broadcaster Robert Marawa on his Twitter account on Saturday.

This marks a return to England for Bafana Bafana’s all-time goal-scorer, having spent some time playing there for Blackburn Rovers and West Ham.

In 2004, McCarthy, a staunch United fan, scored two spectacular goals for Jose Mourinho’s Porto side to knock the Red Devils out of that competition.

“I support Man United and always wanted to play for them,” said McCarthy as quoted by The Athletic . “I loved players like Mark Hughes, Andy Cole and Ryan Giggs.

“So I was heartbroken to score twice. My dream was to score once at Old Trafford, not to knock United out of the Champions League. I got hammered after the game by Jose Mourinho because I wasn’t very happy. He told me that if I didn’t cheer up then I’d never play in his team again.”

McCarthy started his coaching career in 2017 with Cape Town City, where he won the MTN8 before moving to AmaZulu in December 2020. He led Usuthu to a second place finish in the 2020/21 season and won the DStv Premiership Coach of the Season award.

The 44-year-old coach has been without a job since March this year after he parted ways with AmaZulu.

McCarthy was linked with the head coach’s positions at Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates over the last few months, but the Soweto giants have since appointed Arthur Zwane and Jose Riviero respectively, meaning that the former Porto striker missed out on these jobs.