Benni McCarthy has detailed what life is like on a daily basis for him as a member of Manchester United's coaching team, hailing the amount of work that goes in behind the scenes.
The former Blackburn Rovers striker was a surprise addition to Erik ten Hag's backroom team last summer, joining the club to develop their attacking play. He joined United at the end of July, just a week before their season opener against Brighton & Hove Albion.
McCarthy, who spent five years in England during his playing career, was out-of-work at the juncture United manager Ten Hag chose to recruit him, following his exit from South African club AmaZulu. The forward coach had been in charge for just over a year and left in March 2022.
His time at AmaZulu marked his second head coach role of his career having spent two years in charge at Cape Town City. However, McCarthy has admitted the amount of work he has had to put in at Old Trafford has been more than what he would have had to have done at AmaZulu and Cape Town City combined.
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McCarthy, speaking to 947 Joburg, said: "I think if I put together both of my jobs as head coach at Cape Town City and AmaZulu in one season, it does not come close to the workload that has been done at Man United; it is relentless.
"That, though, is to be expected because of the levels where you are and the amount of world-class players that you deal with on a daily basis. We have got to be ultra-prepared every single day. At 7am, 7.30am in the morning, we are in the office delegating the training sessions, the individual schedules and all of the data.
"Then the players come in and you have your individual meetings and stuff, then you are in the office working tirelessly working on different content to work with the manager. At about 6pm in the evening you then leave to go home after a long day.
"That is just working as an attacking coach. The manager... oh my goodness, it is frightening [the amount of work he puts in]. But you know when you see the results and the progress that the team is making and where we are, you don't mind all of those hard-working hours that you put in.
"It makes it worthwhile, because when you see the success that Man United has everywhere in the world that you go... wow, we are like superheroes."
McCarthy, who is 45, enjoyed an extensive playing career, both across Europe and in South Africa. He played in England, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal during his European days, meaning he is fluent in several languages, enabling him to communicate with members of United's squad in almost every player's respective mother tongue.
"I think I conversed with David de Gea, Lisandro Martinez, Alejandro Garnacho and Facundo Pellistri, who are my Spanish crew," McCarthy added. "They are the boys that I speak Spanish with.
"We have then got a young boy in the Under-21s who is really good and is a future prospect. I also speak Spanish with him.
"My Portuguese crew is Fred, Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Dalot and Victor Lindelof. Then there is the Dutch crew that is Wout Weghorst, the manager, Mitchell van der Gaag, who is the assistant manager, one of the analyst guys, Kevin, and Tyrell Malacia.
"That is the Dutch crew who I speak Dutch with. We then obviously have the English boys, but unfortunately there are no Africans!"
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