{"id":50928,"date":"2026-11-13T19:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T17:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=50928"},"modified":"2026-11-13T19:36:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T17:36:54","slug":"bafana-bafana-must-not-expect-any-favours-from-kenya-mccarthy","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/bafana-bafana-must-not-expect-any-favours-from-kenya-mccarthy\/","title":{"rendered":"Bafana Bafana must not expect any favours from Kenya: McCarthy\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
Former Bafana Bafana marksman, Benni McCarthy, says the South African (SA) team should not expect any favours from Kenya when the two teams face off in an Africa Cup of Nations Cup (AFCON) qualifier in Soweto on Friday evening.<\/div>\n
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Even though McCarthy has described the match as a \u201cDavid and Goliath\u201d clash, he says they will give SA a good run for their money. Bafana Bafana need a win against the Harambee Stars to maintain their three-point lead in Group D.<\/div>\n
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McCarthy, who celebrated his 49th birthday on Thursday, returns to familiar surroundings with Kenya. The Bafana Bafana all-time leading goalscorer played for Orlando Pirates for three seasons between 2011 and 2013 at tonight\u2019s venue.<\/div>\n
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The former Celta Vigo, Porto and Blackburn Rovers forward played 79 times for SA\u2019s senior national football team and scored 31 goals. He was appointed Kenya national coach in March 2025 and says the result of the match against Bafana does not matter.<\/div>\n
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His mission is to build a formidable side for next year\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations to be co-hosted by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe trying to build squad and trying to figure out who\u2019s the best players we\u2019ve got out there in Kenya and by the time AFCON comes that we have the right players for the tournament to help us go forward. For us it\u2019s to go out there and to give a good account of ourselves and let Bafana sweat a little bit. Obviously, we lost against Guinea, we drew against Eritrea, it looks like a walk in the park.\u201d<\/div>\n
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McCarthy says Bafana Bafana have made good strides in recent years after qualifying for back-to-back AFCON tournaments and also returning to the FIFA World Cup after a long absence.<\/div>\n
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\u201cLocal is lekker, you can see that the players play with freedom there\u2019s a lot of excitement, there\u2019s joy within the camp and they\u2019ve got a coach now that understands them, that understands the culture, that understands what it means to be SA and it\u2019s amazing to see. I mean only if we had it at the World Cup, I think SA would have done a little bit better than what they did. But not saying anything bad or criticising what the previous coach has done.\u201d<\/div>\n
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SA are under pressure to win against Kenya following Guinea\u2019s victory over Eritrea Thursday night. Bafana who have a game in hand, now have the same number of points as Guinea who beat Eritrea last night.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit difficult; we are playing a team led by a personality a top guy that has done more than any other player in the country. I mean no one has done what Benni has done internationally for our country, we have to give him the respect and show him the respect that he deserves because he was a top player right, and as a coach no one has ever coached Manchester United in this country. We have to understand and give respect and make sure that we are proper and ready for the game.\u201d says Pitso Mosimane, Bafana Bafana coach.<\/div>\n
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The match kicks off at 6pm and will televised on SABC 3.<\/div>\n
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–SABC–<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21315,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-50928","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"McCarthy says Bafana Bafana have made good strides in recent years after qualifying for back-to-back AFCON tournaments.","published_date":"","news_description":"McCarthy says Bafana Bafana have made good strides in recent years after qualifying for back-to-back AFCON tournaments.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50930,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50928\/revisions\/50930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=50928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}