The Citizens are busy preparing for their maiden MTN8 final – which presents McCarthy a chance to win his first trophy as a coach – where they will face off against SuperSport United in Durban for the first piece of silverware this season.
With the iconic Cape Town Stadium available owing to the Fifa international break, and the next match only scheduled for 17 October – City’s next league encounter against Bloemfontein Celtic – the stadium and city have come to an agreement to let the club train on the world-class surface in preparation for next weekend’s final.
“I really must thank the City of Cape Town for giving us a platform to work – it’s always difficult for us to train at the stadium, but because we’re in the final, they have allowed us to train and use their facilities on a more regular basis,” McCarthy said, as City enjoyed their first training session on the pristine pitch on Thursday. “That’s unbelievable.
“When the stadium and the city does good for teams, it often goes unnoticed – nobody raves about it, but everyone is quick to point fingers and say ‘the city is not helping, the stadium is not helping’, but now they’re doing an unbelievable cause for us. Being able to train in that facility and on that pitch will help us immensely in preparing for the MTN8 final, which we are looking to go and win of course.”
McCarthy feels the stadium’s hospitality is a sure sign of the city’s endeavour to support football in the area, and hopes to repay the faith shown to the club with victory next Saturday.
“We are extremely proud and grateful for this opportunity,” he continued. “So you can see the city of Cape Town wants to see their teams succeed, whether it’s us, or if it had been Ajax, I think they would have done exactly the same thing, so it’s an unbelievable deed from their part. They do care about Cape Town football and are willing to help us. So thank you very much Cape Town … City! And stadium, for giving us the platform to help us to go and win that MTN8 final.”
Saturday’s final at Moses Mabhida Stadium is set to kick off at 19h00