NAIROBI, Kenya, June 9, 2025 – Harambee Stars head coach Benni McCarthy admits he is heartbroken after they failed to score against Chad in an international friendly in Morocco on Saturday night.
The South African believes they deserved to come away from the fixture with a win, having dominated from start to finish.
“When you dominate a match like this, you have to be very disappointed that you didn’t win…didn’t score goals. It was so easy for us to play because they sat back very low and defended the middle of the park. We were just not patient enough…the biggest disappointment for me is that we didn’t score,” McCarthy said.
Stars were held to a barren draw by the central Africans in Marrakech on Saturday night despite carving out a number of goalscoring chances.
It was McCarthy’s third game in charge, having kickstarted his reign with a 3-3 draw with the Gambia in a 2026 World Cup qualifier in March.
Their next match was a 2-1 home loss to Gabon in another of their World Cup qualifier in the same month.
The former Bafana Bafana hitman concedes there is much work to do to improve on their offense and put teams to the sword.
He observed that his players are yet to adapt their mentality to an international level.
“I think the biggest learning curve for us is to be a bit more clinical and more aggressive in front of goal. We need to play a little bit more with intensity because I think at times…especially when they went one player down…a lot of our players still think we are playing in the Kenyan league. This is the international level so you have to maintain the intensity,” he said.
McCarthy added: “You have to move the ball quick and create the chances and I think we just didn’t do that a lot. It cost us and that’s why we ended up drawing a match that we should have won easily.”
The two sides lock horns once again on Tuesday at the same venue.
McCarthy is sharpening his boys ahead of the Africa Nations Championships (CHAN), which Kenya will co-host with Uganda and Tanzania in August, this year.
