Benni McCarthy has hit out at the Premier Soccer League for not respecting AmaZulu’s CAF Champions League campaign enough.
The Usuthu coach saw his side pick up their first ever CAF Champions League win in the group stages on Friday, beating Horoya 1-0.
However, AmaZulu had to return to domestic football and played out a goalless draw with TS Galaxy on Tuesday.
On Friday, AmaZulu will now again switch their focus to the CAF Champions League, when McCarthy’s team will face Algerian side ES Setif at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
The Dstv Premiership Coach of the Season believes the PSL leadership could have done better and given Usuthu a free midweek, while their opponents’ league match was postponed to give them maximum time to prepare.
“It’s tough to prepare with the circumstances we’ve had. The narrative that we had in December and to play on Friday, then Tuesday and then tomorrow awaits another difficult, complicated match for us,” he told reporters.
“Knowing that our opponents’ match was postponed so they can focus and concentrate so they can focus on this encounter but we on the other hand, we play on Tuesday and we’ve already played four games more than anybody else has but accumulating games still in a week where we have this kind of preparation.
“It disturbs the preparation a little but we have to deal with it because there is not much consideration that is going into the fixtures and thinking that we want to give our country’s teams an opportunity to advance and make sure they can prepare themselves properly instead of dumping match in between to achieve what, I don’t know.
“So it’s not been the best preparation for us but I mean mentally we prepared well. We know what is expected from us…
“Tomorrow is going to be a war between South Africa and Northern Africa and we just hope that we have the same mentality, the same mindset that we had against Horoya. This is our home and we’ll protect it as good as we can. We show no fear.”
CLIMBING MOUNT EVEREST
McCarthy also insisted that it’s now up to his players to pick up a second win in Group B to give themselves a great position in the group.
“When you take into consideration that you’ve climbed Mount Everest on Friday with Horoya and then you had to got to Kilimanjaro on Tuesday and now you asked to go again to climb Mount Everest on Friday, of course it’s going to take its toll on you. So you’re not going to get the same performance as you would if it was a longer recovery process,” he added.
“If the players are up for it and they are ready then we give ourselves a massive opportunity to make home advantage count and have a performance that you take care of your home games and we just have to go away from home and target one team that we can beat and play for a draw, then you’re halfway there.
“If you win here, you’ve got six points. That’s the luxury that we can have and it’s very much possible but like I said the preparations haven’t been great and now it will depend on the players, on their mindset, on their mentality, where they are physicality to push themselves to climb Kilimanjaro or Mount Everest again.”
