26 GOAL MAN

LESLEY MANYATHELA

Since the beginning of the PSL in 1996, I don’t remember South African football being in a better state than it is at the moment. We’ve seen Bernard Parker, Nasief Morris and Benni McCarthy coming back to South Africa. Last season leading goal scorer has left our shores for German out fit TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and he was replaced by another goal scoring machine from Amazulu, Lehlohonolo Majoro and was later joined by Bernard Parker from FC Twente in Holland.

The league sponsor, ABSA, has set a 26 goal target for the top goal scorer. Since Chiefs brought both Majoro and Parker into their team, Pirates went a step further; they brought in one man whose experience is probably better than those of the two Chiefs players combined. It’s fair to say that, with all the preseason signings by the treble winners, including this one, they look more determined to defend all their trophies. They aim to go even further than last season.
But the signing of Benni is very much interesting.

BENNI McCARTHY

After spending most of the time with Ajax Cape Town, he joined Pirates. For me it made sense, no big player would chose Ajax over Kaizer Chiefs or Orlando Pirates here in South Africa. He played in Europe for the past 14 years and he’s arguably the most successful South African footballer over the past decade and half. But here is where everything gets interesting, the last time Pirates had a leading goal scorer was in 2002/03 season with the late Lesley Manyathela doing it for them. Since then we’ve seen the PSL top-scorer award being named the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot Award but Pirates has never had a player claiming this award.
Manyathela managed to score 18 goals (22 in all competitions after promising the chairman to score as many goals as his shirt number) and since then we’ve seen midfielders and defenders do it for Pirates. Last season was no different. Isaac Chansa, Tlou Segolela and Thulasizwe Mbuyane scored regularly to seal the league for them. Mind you there were six strikers who managed to score not more than 4 goals. The last Pirates’ strikers to get into the double figures were ­Phumudzo Manenzhe and Excellent Walaza in the 2004/05 and 2006/07 seasons respectively, when they found the back of the net 10 times and Benedict Vilakazi got to 13 in 2003/04, since then there has never been anyone good enough to get to 18. One feels that Pirates still have a debt to pay; they still have to win the top-scorer award in memory of Lesley ‘Slow Poison’ Manyathela.

I’m not even going to try to give you the figures of Benni’s career that will just be a challenge in itself, but the question remains, does he still got it in him to score 15 goals or is he the 26 goal man. He is 33 and his international career speaks for itself. He has already scored his first goal, 25 more to go. Can Benni do it for Phuti, the story continues.