'I helped Jose Mourinho beat Fergie's Man Utd - now I'm a coach at Old Trafford'
Some 20 years on from Manchester United's infamous defeat at Porto in the Champions League, one key figure is part of the furniture at Old Trafford.
It's not Ryan Giggs or Paul Scholes, the long-serving stars who remained on the playing staff for the best part of 20 years between them after the painful reverse. Nor is it Jose Mourinho, the Porto manager that year and United's boss 12 years later, with the Portuguese getting his marching orders in December 2018.
Instead, it's the man who scored both goals in Porto's first-leg win at the end of February 2004, giving them an advantage which they preserved thanks to Costinha's late, late Old Trafford effort. Benni McCarthy was Porto's hero that day, and now he's the man tasked with helping the likes of Rasmus Hojlund become their best selves.
South Africa striker McCarthy never made it to United as a player, with his only experience of English football coming with Blackburn and, briefly, West Ham. In 2022, though, he was recruited by Erik ten Hag as the Dutchman set about making his mark in the Premier League.
McCarthy was Porto's top scorer in the 2003-04 season, scoring 20 league goals - including his team's first and last of the campaign. He took a bit longer to get going in Europe, but the goals - when they arrived - were big ones.
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It's easy to forget how slowly Porto started in Europe, taking just a point from their first two group games. Home and away wins against Marseille helped turn things around, but they still needed a McCarthy double against Partizan Belgrade to ensure their progress.
Mourinho's team went through as runners-up behind Real Madrid, setting up a meeting with a United side who conceded just twice across their six group games under Sir Alex Ferguson. McCarthy, however, had little trouble getting the better of centre-back pairing Gary Neville and Wes Brown at the Dragao.
His first strike was pure instinct, lashing a volley low past Tim Howard to level things up after his international team-mate Quinton Fortune had put the visitors in front. United introduced Cristiano Ronaldo to retake the lead, but instead, it was McCarthy who struck again with a towering header - the kind Ronaldo would have been proud of later in his career.
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Benni McCarthy helped Porto stun Manchester United in 2004 (MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP via Getty Images)McCarthy also had a big role to play in the return fixture, with his free-kick parried into the path of Costinha for the match-winner. By the time the final rolled around, though, Mourinho favoured Derlei, the man who had won Porto the previous season's UEFA Cup.
The next two seasons saw McCarthy remain in and out of the side under a succession of managers, and he eventually took the next step of his career at Blackburn. United's current boss Ten Hag is well aware of his talents, though - McCarthy spent time at Ajax earlier in his career, when Ten Hag was winding down his own playing career with Twente, and the United boss brought in the South African as a strikers' coach for the 2022-23 season.
“In our coaching staff, we had a lot of defenders and midfield players," Ten Hag told club media in January 2023. "I wanted also to find a good balance. He is offensive [minded] as he is a former striker and that is also a really specific job task in the team.
"I never played there, so I’m lucky to have someone in my staff who played there. Football is about scoring and you have a goalkeeping specialist, but you also have offensive specialists and, in particular, we have a specific scoring trainer.
"He has to add that, in detail, working and for the rest of us, he has a relationship to all the players in our squad. He also has to work on the togetherness and he is doing a great job on that.”
The South African had a big part to play in both legs of the Champions League clash (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images))While McCarthy's exact input can't be fully quantified, the facts are these. Marcus Rashford enjoyed his best-ever goalscoring season last term after a difficult few months, while Rasmus Hojlund - after a difficult start - found his shooting boots around the turn of the year.
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The 46-year-old arrived off the back of solid managerial stints in his homeland with Cape Town City and AmaZulu and was linked with the Kaizer Chiefs job back in November. He has remained at United, though, with French frontman Anthony Martial another to hail his impact.
“Yes, he’s a coach I speak with a lot," Martial told United's matchday programme. "Both on and off the training ground. On every occasion, he gives me a lot of good advice and that can only be a good thing for all the players involved.”
Erik ten Hag brought McCarthy onto his coaching staff at Old Trafford (Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)It's not just the strikers, either. Jonny Evans spoke highly of McCarthy's impact back in October after coming close to scoring for the first time in his second United spell.
"I suppose I have to give credit to Benni," Evans told MUTV (via The MEN). "Over pre-season when I wasn't able to join in because of numbers, we'd do finishing sessions with Benni McCarthy and a few younger lads. So I suppose I can give Benni a bit of credit!"
While United weren't able to enjoy a crack at the later stages of this season's Champions League, you'd have been hard-pressed to lay the blame with their front line. With 12 goals in six group stage games, United finished as joint-top scorers but bottom finishers in their group, outscoring half of the teams who reached the round of 16.
There's still a lot of work to do as Ten Hag's team looks to return to Europe's top table this year, with Aston Villa and Spurs standing between them and a Champions League spot. Still, they can always fall back on having a man on their coaching staff who's been there and done it before - even if it was at United's expense.
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