Benni’s retirement shock, influenced by De Sa’s treatment

Kgothatso Madisa

@kgmadisa

Benni McCarthy. Picture: The Post

Having played in the biggest teams around the world and being one of the national proficient

strikers to date, I would also feel belittled by such treatment, but we’ll get to that later.

Benni McCarthy has, after 17 years decided to finally hang his boots and call it quits saying it is now time for a new chapter.

He says that he will be looking at working with various teams to get his coaching skills. After playing soccer for so many years he says he would also like to work for a television station analysing the beautiful game.

It came as a shock to a lot of us, including his former teammate Shaun Bartlett has admitted to Goal.com that the decision was unexpected. Bartlett says that he believes that the player has been suffering a lot injuries lately and that could be one of the reasons behind his retirement.

But having watched Benni play on the soccer pitch for so long, especially in the national team (Bafana Bafana) where to this day has the most goals. I don’t buy all of this talk about age, weight and injuries forcing him to retire.

Benni McCarthy. Picture: Wikipedia

The whole of South African was ecstatic about Benni’s return to his home soil and Orlando Pirates fans were even more excited because he would be joining their team. It was clear from the onset that Pirates would be unbeaten and they were as they brought home three title (Premier Soccer League (PSL), Telkom Knockout and MTN8 in the 2011-12 season where Benni finished off with magnificent 13 goals.

Orlando Pirates coach Roger de Sa and Benni’s feud is known by many, it said to be stretching from the time De Sa was coaching Bidvest Wits in 2011.

There were a lot of speculations about Benni leaving The Bucs after De Sa was appointed head coach in 2012 because it did not seem like the two would be able to bury the hatchets and actually work together.

But against all odds the two were able to work together. But Benni did not enjoy the starting eleven for long under De Sa as the former Wits coach made sure he occupied the bench by signing the Zambian international Collins Mbesuma.

From there onwards, it was clear that the level of their feud has elevated and Benni has been watching from the sidelines quite often.

It seemed like De Sa had no idea about the world class player Benni was. It was like De Sa did not know that Benni scored 52 goals in 40 matches for Blackburn Rovers, including being the highest scorer for the team in 2006-7 season with 18 goals. Most importantly, De Sa seemed to be unaware that during his time at FC Porto, Benni won the golden boot in 2004 after scoring a hat-trick in UEFA Champions League which they won.

This is one of the solid explanations behind the reasons why the 35 year-old decided to hang his boots along with the Kickoff.com suggestion that Irvin Khoza always delays player’s contracts negotiations and Benni was not to be left hanging until the last days of his before it expires.