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Q&A with Cape Town City coach McCarthy

football18 August 2019 11:48| © Mzansi Football
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Cape Town City’s defence of the MTN8 trophy proved brief as they were bundled out of the tournament by Polokwane Coty on Saturday.

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In the wake of the 2-0 quarterfinal defeat at Newlands, coach Benni McCarthy spoke to Supersport.com.

You were heavily fancied to win so what went wrong against Polokwane City?

“You can’t win ‘em all. It was an unfortunate day at the office. Nothing went right, we made a poor start and after that we were second best to everything and I think, first of all, when you are defending your title you got to be prepared for a tough day at the office and fight for everything and I think some of the players on the pitch thought it was going to be a walk in the park, a nice easy day, but we got as nice little reality check. When you don’t pitch up, you are not going to get away with it, nothing will be given to you. We made it easy for Polokwane because we allowed them to dictate.

We weren’t our usual selves. I don’t think we can took for excuses about the conditions, just because we are not accustomed to playing at Newlands. I thought I fielded a strong team but we took the opponent too lightly. We knew they were going to come and sit and hit us on the counter attack and they were just more aggressive than us. They wanted it far more than we wanted it, they showed they were first to every second ball, willing runners. They were the better team at the end of the day and you have to accept it, when you go out to a team you couldn’t have beaten because they were superior,” he added.

Is there anything you could have done differently that might have changed the outcome?

“I think if we started the game the way we started the second half, when we came out more aggressive, we knew nothing was going to get given to us and we had to get our foot in as well. We started to make some good combination plays and then Gift (Links) and Craig (Martin) got us lot of joy (down the wings) but there was no end product. We just lacked execution. The end product wasn’t there. But it was mainly that we weren’t up for a fight. We wanted Polokwane to be nice, so we could maybe try and get the better of them but they came here to show some teeth, get stuck in and it was unfortunately something we weren’t up for. We got what we deserved.”

We except there might be the famous Benni McCarthy halftime rant which so often last season turned the game around for Cape Town City. Was there one against Polokwane and if so, why did it not work?

“No, I was quite relaxed because I think we will have moments like this when it doesn’t go and then we change it in the second half. It wasn’t necessary. We just needed to change our attitudes a bit, our approach, the way we came into the game. So there was no real major need for me to be screaming my head off. I didn’t feel that it was necessary.

We just neederd to stick to the tactics we had set. It needed players to run from deep, get behind their defence as the balls came in from wide but the player we were expecting to go in there, weren’t up for it. Everyone wanted the ball to feet and played into the opponent’s hands. They were aggressive in the challenges and tackles and it was easy for them to deal with us.”

Is there a silver lining to being knocked out of the MTN8 because last season when you won it, your league form suffered?

“Yes and no. No! Because it would have been great to experience cup success again, which comes as a result of your hard work and how well we’ve done. It would give players a chance to catch up on their fitness because you play a couple of extra games and help those players get ready for the rest of the season. But we weren’t able to do that. Now we can focus on the league, but it’s not like the league is getting any easier for us because we’ve got two hefty challenges coming up now.

One is on Tuesday alreafy (away against Mamelodi Sundowns at Atteridgeville). You only getting over this disappointment now and how do you get yourself back into a fighting spirit to face the champions? And then a week after that we are playing the team at top of the log at this moment in time (Kaizer Chiefs). It ain’t getting easier and we didn’t help ourselves with the blow to our confidence. But we’ve survived im ther past and we can get over this one as well.

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