Benedict Saul McCarthy (born 12 November 1977) is a South African football coach and former player who is a first-team coach at Manchester United. He previously worked as head coach of South African Premier Division team AmaZulu. A former forward, McCarthy is the South Africa national team's all-time top scorer with 31 goals. He is also the only South African to have won the UEFA Champions League, doing so with Porto in 2003–04. Early life McCarthy was born in Cape Town and grew up in Hanover Park in the Cape Flats, an area notorious for its high unemployment rate and gang violence. He is the son of Dudley and Dora McCarthy and has two brothers and a sister. His older brother is Jerome McCarthy, a former professional footballer who played for Kaizer Chiefs and Manning Rangers, among other clubs, while his younger brother Mark played football at Franklin Pierce University in the United States. McCarthy began playing at a local side called Young Pirates, which was managed by his uncles. He then joined the youth structures of a local amateur club called Crusaders. At age 17, he was signed by first division club Seven Stars. Club career Seven Stars Playing for Seven Stars, the 18-year-old McCarthy scored 1 goal in 29 matches in the 1995–96 season, followed by another 12 goals in 20 matches, which earned him a transfer to Cape Town Spurs, which two years later merged with Seven Stars to form Dutch club Ajax's feeder team, Ajax Cape Town. Ajax In 1997, after an impressive showing at the African Youth Championship and FIFA World Youth Championship in Malaysia, he joined Ajax in the Eredivisie, where he scored nine goals and was crowned champion in his first season. After a relatively successful 1998–99 season, he was sold to Spanish side Celta de Vigo for a transfer fee reported to be over €6 million, at the time the most expensive transfer for a South African player. Celta Vigo Although regarded as one of the best African players at the time, McCarthy never established himself as a regular choice for Celta's manager, Víctor Fernández. After two poor seasons at the Galician club, he was loaned to struggling Porto in the 2001–02 season, where he soon rediscovered the form that took him to Europe. At Porto, McCarthy played under the then newly appointed coach José Mourinho for an underperforming team that since