Welcome to the Benni McCarthy circus

THE love-hate relationship between perennial country snob Benni McCarthy and Bafana Bafana continued unabated at Nasrec this week.

Benni, the lad many folks would love to loathe, is back in the Bafana Bafana squad.

And already the bets are going around on whether or not the ‘Prodigal One’ will check-in at the London hotel on Sunday at Bafana camp.

If he doesn’t, it won’t be the first time and, trust me, not the last time that this prima donna has turned his back on the country of his birth at a moment when he is most needed.

To borrow from his words of wisdom, Benni once exclaimed that “I don’t need Bafana, they need me,” and as much as I hate to agree with him, he is right.

After all, he is Benni McCarthy and, in his words “the most successful player to come out of this country”. He is the ‘Special One’ and deserves special treatment. It is for these reasons that, in my years as a sport writer, I have had to write more stories about this fellow from the Cape Flats absconding from camp than his glorious moments.

Why should I then bother about Benni?

Don’t get me wrong, he has been one of the leading figures at Bafana Bafana. He has been the star; the boy who has always played with our emotions; the lad who got fame out of representing his country (Malaysia 1997) and then betrayed the same people who had cheered him to stardom.

His call-up for the Australia game comes on the heels of his recent snub when he bailed out of Bafana Bafana’s crucial Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Nigeria – the game that turned out to be a nightmare for the South Africans.

As we had done before, we cursed Benni for letting us down again. We hurled insults in his direction and, within soccer circles, he was labelled a traitor and someone suffering from illusions of grandeur.

But as before, we have come to the realisation that, no matter how we would love to hate the lanky former FC Porto striker, his presence in the Bafana jersey inspires confidence and even when Benni is having a day off, he ignites the dying hopes with his charismatic presence up-front.

The South African media hates him and justifiably so, because in some cases I have witnessed McCarthy trading barbs with the country’s soccer scribes at Bafana training camps. I have seen him snubbing press conferences and, at one particular moment, he told us that he would not talk to us because he didn’t think we were important to him.

But Benni is a problem child. Benni is like that member of a family that you know you should hate, but you don’t.

Should I love Benni or should I loathe this lad?

Let me take a moment to digest that thought.