Former South Africa and Porto striker Benni McCarthy has been added to Erik ten Hag’s coaching staff at Manchester United, the Premier League giants have revealed.
The Red Devils confirmed on Saturday evening that McCarthy, a former Orlando Pirates and Ajax striker, will become a first-team coach at the Premier League side for the upcoming campaign.
The 44-year-old tactician, who was named the 2020–21 Premier Soccer League Coach of the Year in May 2021, once scored two memorable goals for Porto against United in 2004 in a Uefa Champions League game.
The goals helped Jose Mourinho’s Porto – who later won the Champions League – to eliminate the Red Devils, and he remains the only South African to lift the European Cup.
At Carrington, McCarthy, an established striker during his playing days, is expected to work with United’s attacking players.
As a player, McCarthy featured for Seven Stars in 1995, a club he joined as an 18-year-old before he moved to Cape Town Spurs on a loan deal.
In 1997, he joined Dutch giants Ajax before he was sold to the Spanish side Celta Vigo after the 1998/99 season. He left Celta Vigo in 2002 for Porto, where he had a relatively long stay, being part of the Portuguese club between 2002 and 2006.
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After serving Porto, the South African legend moved to England, where he signed for Blackburn Rovers, playing for them between 2006 and 2010, before another move that saw him join West Ham United.
He played for the Hammers until 2011 before he returned home and featured for the Sea Robbers from 2011 to 2013.
The Bafana Bafana legend has previously managed Cape Town City and AmaZulu in the PSL and had previously worked as an assistant at Sint-Truiden in the Netherlands.
At Cape Town City, the former Orlando Pirates striker, who is also a Uefa Pro License holder, won his first silverware as a coach in 2018 after guiding the club to the MTN 8 Cup.
AmaZulu appointed him the head coach in December 2020 and led the Durban club to a second-place finish in PSL; a record-high finish for Usuthu in the PSL era.
Besides finishing second, AmaZulu qualified for the Caf Champions League’s 2021/21 season but were eliminated at the group stage in what was their debut continental campaign.
