Benni McCarthy says his Cape Town City team will have to beat the best if they want to be considered among the best.
The message comes ahead of their two-legged MTN8 semifinal test against PSL champions Mamelodi Sundowns at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday..
That match kicks off a nightmare run of fixtures for the Citizens, who must go to Downs in the second leg as well as face Free State Stars (A), Kaizer Chiefs (H), Orlando Pirates (A), Wits (H).
Now Benni has challenged his manne to rise to the occasion and find goals after a disappointing goalless draw against Golden Arrows last weekend.
The Bafana Bafana goalscoring legend says: “It’s a really tough, but what can you say.
“If you wanna do well in the his competition, if you wanna do well in this league, you have to play the best teams anyway.
“Unfortunately for us, they come right after each other. But it’s not like we shy away from a challenge.
“We’ll be be working hard on the training field to correct what we did wrong today and hopefully when those big clashes do come we’ll be ready and not firing blanks again.”
In-form midfielder Thabo Nodada is ready to put his hand up after a great start to the season.
The diminutive dynamo has been instrumental in City’s defence and attack and is looking forward to the challenge of taking Downs’ star-studded midfield, like Hlompho Kekana, Oupa Manyisa and Andile Jali.
And he says: “They’ve got legs, they have hands just like we do.
“There’s 11 players a side. What do you want me to say? You want me to say we are going to lose?"
And after failing to win last season’s final, Nodada says they are not getting too excited.
He adds: “This time around we are taking it one step at a time. We are not too excited.
We’ve still got the semifinal to play and once we get past that then we can think about the final.
“Definitely we were disappointed that we lost in the cup final and now we looking at winning it.”