Just days after his “horror show” against Callisto Pasuwa in a CAF Champions League showdown, Benni McCarthy now faces another highly-rated Zimbabwean tonight.
The South African coach takes on Kaitano Tembo in the second of his three head-to-head battles against Zimbabwean coaches spread over one week.
McCarthy’s Amazulu will host Tembo’s SuperSport United in a DStv Premiership match at King’s Park, in Durban, tonight.
The former Bafana Bafana star will then take his Usuthu to Blantyre this week for the return battle against Pasuwa’ Nyasa Big Bullets, hoping they can overturn a 0-1 first leg preliminary round deficit, on Saturday.
McCarthy is still being haunted by his team’s defeat at the hands of Nyasa Big Bullets last Friday. “It was a horror show for me,’’ he told the South African media. “We were nowhere close to our best. When you play the way we did, and you don’t have a desire to score goals, you won’t have a chance.
“You look at the opposition, they did nothing in the game.
‘‘They played to their strength and played for free-kicks and they put the ball in the blocks and used their physicality, and then, they got away with one (goal).
“I can’t really sum the game up because it was difficult to watch and difficult to accept what was happening out there. You create the chances we did and we failed to score.
“Maybe, if you get a chance to speak to the players, who were on the pitch, they’ll give you a better idea of what they think went on out there.“But, I just think that was a horror show for me to watch, especially a lack of desire that we showed out there.
‘‘When you get those chances, and you play in that manner and then you go 10 vs 11, and still nothing, so yeah, I think the players will have to take a hard look at themselves.”
He said it was a nightmare, to watch his team, from the bench.
“For me, I think it was a disastrous game, now we have to go to the jungle, we have to go to a very difficult place looking to win away from home, which not many teams have done,’’ said McCarthy.
‘‘But, now, we’re asking that of ourselves, so we’ll just prepare for that now.
“I think some of our players thought it was an easy day in the park, you could see the lack of enthusiasm, lack of desire of wanting to do things and wanting to score goals.
“There was nothing from our front players.
‘‘As good as it looked from the outside, that we played nice and we moved the ball well, you can’t create the number of chances that we got and fail to score a single goal.
“This team (Big Bullets) creates absolutely nothing. One long ball and then they win the game. “How’s that possible?’ you ask yourself? Is it the injustice of football?
“It’s just that when they get a chance, they stick it at the back of the net and that’s why in SA we keep crying that we don’t have people who want to score goals.
‘‘It’s because our players simply don’t want to take that responsibility.
“They don’t want to take that and say “I’m the guy that wants to score goals.” We need 15 chances but I think today we created more than 20 chances and we were still on the losing
‘‘When we go for the second leg and we must go and fight better than we did here at home.” Chiukepo Msowoya’s 26th-minute strike powered Pasuwa and his men to glory in Durban despite playing for more than 50 minutes with a one-man handicap.
Yamikani Fodya was sent off, for a dangerous foul on Thabo Qalinge, towards the end of the first half. — The Herald/TimesLive
