By virtue of their third-placed Absa Premiership finish last season, City have qualified for the 2018 CAF Confederation Cup, where they have been pitted against Swaziland outfit Young Buffaloes in their first round qualifier.
City have a chance to add to their ranks in the upcoming January transfer window, though McCarthy says he hasn’t quite pinpointed who exactly he wants to join him in the Mother City.
City have already acquired the services of Kwanda Mngonyama from Sundowns and Aubrey Ngoma has gone in the other direction.
“I’ve not really sat down and looked at which players can come in and add value to the team, but I think now it’s a good time to have a closer look and identify the guys who I think can add to this team and help make us stronger in our pursuit for a top eight finish,” he said. “But I haven’t pinpointed to the chairman exactly which players I want because I was figuring out how to win games.”
McCarthy did, however, say he is looking for players with previous CAF experience as he looks to prepare City as best as possible for their first venture on the continent.
“A couple more quality players wouldn’t be bad; if we can get some good experienced players who have played for teams that have already played in Africa, that could help,” he said.
“We do have a lot of young boys out there … I’m not saying we want old players, but just guys with some experience in Africa as you don’t want to go into the unknown with the attitude of “oh we’ll see what happens” and then you get the shock of your life and get knocked out in the first round – we don’t want that. So it would be good to add some quality that knows what they’ll be up against when they go to Africa.”
City will make their African bow in the second week of February next year.