McCarthy: It's going to be tough

If hosts South Africa are to pull off a shock and make a run deep into the finals at the upcoming FIFA World Cup™, a man likely to be banging in the goals is one Benni McCarthy. Currently plying his trade at English Premier League outfit, McCarthy has long been South Africa’s highest-profile player.

Approaching the end of his career and looking forward to the first FIFA World Cup finals on African soil, the 32-year-old striker took time out to speak exclusively to FIFA.com on the cusp of his third appearance on the world’s biggest stage. The topics up for debate: the importance of opening well against Mexico, problems in African football and why Argentina’s Lionel Messi could well win the tournament all by himself.

FIFA.com: How do you think South Africa will do at the 2010 FIFA World Cup on home soil?
Benni McCarthy: If I am honest, it is going to be really, really tough. We couldn’t have a more difficult group. Uruguay are a top South American side, great players in their line-up, so they are going to be a really tough nut to crack, and then Mexico are extremely difficult. And obviously there’s the French side. They’ve not been the best over the last two years but they’ve still got the players and in tournaments like the World Cup, they can get off to a good start and then you never know what’s going to happen. I think they have a point to prove to the world after being so underrated lately.

Is there a big advantage, though, to playing at home in front of your own fans?
The advantage for us is that we do play at home, we do have the majority of the fans on our side and we do have the conditions that we are used to and that other teams will have to adapt to. So maybe that could be a factor that could count for us. We are just hoping to get a great start in the first two games, before we play France. You never know, we could set ourselves up nicely for a chance of going through to the knockout rounds.

The first game against Mexico must surely be considered crucial, a win could hand South Africa some momentum and create a fever that could carry the team forward...
I think the first game is possibly everything. The first game is our final. The first game will tell us if we are going through or not going through. If we can beat Mexico, that will send everyone’s confidence sky high. It will make us believe we are good enough to beat France or Spain or whoever comes along in our path later. That will set us up fantastically and hype things even more, with the fans and everyone. And then I think we can actually be the surprise package of this World Cup

How crucial is head coach Carlos Alberto Parreira in this whole recipe for potential success?
I think he’s probably the one who is going to ultimately determine how far we go. With his experience, we couldn’t have got a more high-profile manager to take our team to the World Cup. With his experience and his ability and obviously how he gets his ideas through to the players, he has been great. Everyone has taken to him. We’ve got a great understanding. He’s come back [from a brief hiatus as coach] and changed things around and the atmosphere in the team from when [Joel] Santana [his replacement for a time] was in charge is so much better. He comes in with a positive attitude and his way of getting the message across to the players can hopefully be a big part of us trying to do well, not just for ourselves, our families, and the country, but also for the manager we have, because he’s been brilliant.