When you peruse the annals of SA soccer, you'll come across a page which will force you to pause.
And maybe ponder in wonder.
Before your eyes would be an entry of a youngster who entered his name in the top echelons of SA football folklore.
Today marks exactly the day this piece of history took place, unfolding under the unforgiving, scorching sun of Burkina Faso.
Thomas Sankara, the iconic Pan Africanist revolutionary who presided over the West African country between 1983 until his assassination in 1987, didn't witness the artistry of the young SA man who used Sankara's soil as a springboard to chart his own path and become an icon.
Go big or go home
At 21, Benni McCarthy was that young man 22 years ago. Having been held to two draws - goalless against Angola and 1-1 with Ivory Coast - Jomo Sono's Bafana were staring down the barrel of ejection from the event.
They had to go big or go home. Nothing but three points was going to guarantee a passage to progress to the next round.
Up stepped the scrawny kid with magic feet from Hanover Park. It played out in front of 9,500 spectators at Stade-Municipal Dioulasso and millions catching the action on the telly. It was a one-man annihilation of the Brave Warriors. Swift. Brutal. All in 13 minutes: 8th, Boom! 11th, Wham! 19th, Bam! 21st, Thank you ma'am!
It almost didn't happen.
An eruption of elation exploded in SA: in sharp contrast to today - a country drowning in depression.
A new hero was born, an heir to Philemon "Chippa" Masinga was in our midst.
It almost didn't happen.
Were it not for the street-smarts of Sono, himself a magician with the pigskin before McCarthy was even an idea in his father's head.
In his capacity as karateka kosh in Augusto Palacios' Perunglish - caretaker coach to you and me - Sono pulled a trick that allowed McCarthy to become the only man to fire a fantastic foursome for Bafana in one match. In the opening match against Angola, McCarthy was due a red card for a rash challenge on an opponent.
Realising that referee Karim Dahou of Algeria was readying himself to dismiss McCarthy, Sono summoned his genius, frantically signalling for McCarthy to be stretchered off the pitch and straight to the dressing room. The man at the centre of executing the escape, then Bafana doctor Victor Ramathesele, recalls the incident.
"Sono approached the touchline and muttered in isiZulu 'Hey Vicky, mkhiphe lomuntu uref uzomgaya i red card (whisk him away before the ref gives him red).
"When we got to the dressing room, Linda Langa [the late Bafana masseur] sprung into action and took Benni out of the stadium and straight back to our camp base." Seeing red would have ruled McCarthy out of contention for the clashes against the Ivory Coast and Namibia. Just like that.
Buoyed by youthful exuberance, McCarthy delivered an exhilarating experience of four goals in 13 minutes.
A red would have robbed us of an awesome foursome, which by the way, were McCarthy's first goals for the senior national soccer side.
A life-changing game
In many ways, that day, February 16, 1998, was the day McCarthy became synonymous with the 'first and only'.
Just over a year from that phenomenal performance, McCarthy transferred to Celta Vigo in Spain, the first citizen of the Republic to do so for a big money move of R38,5m. He became the first and only South African to win the Uefa Champions League with Porto in 2003-04.
Back in '98, he became the first and only South African to score seven goals in an Afcon, finish joint top-scorer with Egyptian legend Hossam Hassan, be voted Player of the Tournament at Afcon. He went on to record the most Bafana goals (31). All of it was launched on that day in the scorching sun of Burkina Faso.
"That was a life-changing game for me," McCarthy told the SABC on the eve of Bafana's encounter with the selfsame 'Nambia' if you're Donald Trump - Namibia to all of us - last year. "It changed the dynamics for how my career turned out."
Now we wonder whether any other player will scale these dizzy heights for future generations to peruse the annals and enthuse at their brilliance.
Email: bbk@sundaytimes.co.za
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