Here is a question I'd like to pose to our PSL coaches, to our technical advisors at our big clubs, to our foreign experts who come here and get paid big bucks to advise us on youth development. Where is our next Benni McCarthy?
You see, Benni, like Quinton Fortune, Shoes Moshoeu and Lucas Radebe, didn't come through a youth development programme. Benni, did not have a special diet growing up, was not schooled properly in the art of scoring. Yet, he went to Europe and conquered the world. He knocked the mighty Alex Ferguson and colossal Manchester United out of the Champions League. He was a top scorer in Portugal. He finished just below Didier Drogba on the scoring charts in the famous English Premier League and yet, for all the perceived progress we have made in professional South African football, we are still seemingly a million miles away from developing another striker like Benni McCarthy.
You only have to look at our scoring charts in the PSL over the last few seasons to see just how lacking we are in the striking department. Our top goal scorer in the PSL finished on 13 league goals this season. 13 goals is the best return in an entire season! The guy who leads our Bafana front line, Bernard Parker, scored 12 PSL league goals the whole season!
Benni scored 12 goals in 11 games in his first stint at Porto in Portugal. He returned the following season to score 20 goals in 23 games! In his first season in the EPL he scored 18 league goals! He has 24 goals in 54 games in top European competitions! And as he hangs up his boots, there isn't a single South African striker coming close to these kinds of figures, not in the PSL and not in any top league in Europe. That's a massive problem for South African soccer.
Now, some coaches might say that strikers aren't made, that they are born. But I ask then, why the hell are they all born in Brazil, in Portugal, in England, in Argentina, in the Ivory Coast, in Cameroon, in Nigeria, in Zimbabwe, and yet not in South Africa? Are only world-class rugby players and cricket players and golfers and swimmers born in South Africa? It's time for PSL clubs, for PSL coaches, for PSL youth coaches, for academy directors, for Safa's youth structures to own this problem. Stop worrying about where the next TV sponsorship deal is coming from and start worrying about where the next goal is coming from instead.
Let's be honest, if you took the goals away, Bafana Bafana would be in the top four in the world rankings for keep-ball. We can keep the ball for days, and have a lot of fun doing it. We are as good as Brazil, as good as Spain, as good as Holland, if not better, when it comes to holding onto it. But when it comes to sticking it in the back of the net when it counts… Well, that is where we come very unstuck. That's why we are no longer a top 20 country in the world. We have world-class goalkeepers, world-class defenders, world-class wingers, world-class creative midfielders, but not a single world-class striker?
No offence to any of the strikers who pull on a Bafana jersey, but unless you are doing it in Spain, Germany or England, you're just not in world-class company. And as such, you're not even close to being in Benni's area…
