The Crown Prince of drama.
WILL Benni McCarthy ever change or is he just a leopard that is stuck with its spots?
LOUIS MAZIBUKOHere is a player who, after winning the R100000 for the most strikes in the Telkom Knockout, said he was going to throw his teammates the mother of all parties.
The recently concluded cup final will be remembered for a variety of reasons. It has given the Ghost bragging rights about winning a rare double.
Others will remember the 3-2 victory against Bidvest Wits as another confirmation of striker Benni McCarthy's petulance.
Trouble is his middle name. The temperamental striker calls it as he sees it; he pulls no punches.
When he was supposed to let his magic feet do the talking on the field, he stepped off it and headed straight to the opposition bench, to give the Wits coaching staff a tongue-lashing. He was even wagging his finger like an apartheid strongman!
As striker of the tournament, maybe he did let his free-scoring feet do the talking. But the motormouth goal-poacher lashed out too many undesirable comments at Roger de Sa and his assistant Eric Tinkler.
Even when his club was at pains to do damage control, the boy from Hanover Park was adamant he'd never speak to the two men again.
His mates at the club, he says, have helped "me change my attitude".
Which attitude is that, exactly, if he can still behave like a spoilt brat?
Remember, he has had more run-ins with Safa than the goals he has scored for Bafana Bafana.
Tinkler and De Sa are mere statistics on his list of casualties.
The fault lies with those part-time strikers in the PSL who have been waiting for Benni's return from England to come and show them how to score goals.
This seems to have gone to his head. Good luck, Benni. You have earned your status as the Crown Prince of local soccer - until a goal-scoring striker emerges.
BUCS59
Sometimes Louis it would help to engage the person you want to write a critical item about so you can have the answers as you keep throwing questions on a subject or have opinion/s on that person.I would like to think that the 'attitude' the Pirates players are referring to could be any of winning mentality, team v indivdual glory (he put Porto into the finals but the glory went to the team and earned Jose M a lucrative contract with Chelsea, as an example), how to keep your life going despite the family trobles (he's divorced from his Spanish wife but still keep friendly lines for the sake of their kids and it seems to be working), never to take as true everything sribes (like yourself) have to say negatively about you as aplayer (fat, unfit, finished as a player, etc.) the same cannot be said about people who, because they've been commenting and writing about other people for years, when they hit the bottom. They don't really make it back to the top of the heap.
I've said it before on this matter (him v Wits Tech staff), even in cricket, sledging has its limits and some batsman have been known to ask the captain to bowl when the opposition comes in to bat. And what do they do? Maybe once or twice they'll bowl 'no ball bouncers' to settle the score. Only two bouncers per over are allowed,and if successful one may land on the head or ribs or other painful part of the opponent. It's allowed. Tinkler and the ever-swearing Roger (watch/read his lips on TV whenever the cameras get a close-up on him after an incident) cannot accept that a man will stand up for his profile, whether on or off the field, they should keep the superlatives for the dressing room and not be explicit wthin an ear's shot from the person they're trying to demoralise or ridicule. Some will respond, and Bennie did.
Either you (Louis) accept that any derogatory comment or no-fact comment ngenye indoda engakhuliswanga ubaba noma wakho ibhekise ngakuwena inkulumo yayo, something like 'woza mina-nawe sibonane ekhoneni' is always possible. Then what do we do? We normally say, hayini madoda, inkulumo nje le ningaze nibulalane'. And it ends there, and you never see or read about litle how's your father? in newspaper/blog columns. Not unless the bloggers are bored and there is nothing better to write/talk about, for instance if we still have a capable national team to conquer AFCON or why our league (PSL) produces less than 20 goals a season, or chances at the Olympics, or anything that has substance and not sympathise and see abuse when responding to a fooul-mouth 'still seeing myself White and Portuguese-for-ever think-we-know-all - we're coaching a Top University team after all and so we should be bright too! technical staff trying to upset a (previously) poor Non-White from gangster-ridden Mitchell's Plain (and so we suspect he is a gangster too and will react in a gangster way). Then you get surprises when the latter happens!
To hell with whether Bennie was right or wrong, the matter is why did those two fools start teasing him about his life? Didn't they have anything else they could lay to him? Obviously they couldn't say he is unfit! and Pirates were in the final through his educated boot after all!
As for SAFA and Bennie matter, it was never there and thanks to poor journalism and ethnic and colour-coded patriotism, you guys made it grea!..who's surviving after that or who did you build/destroy through your pen/typewriter? There's Bennie, there's SAFA and there's Bafana Bafana? Pick one Louis!!
