Cape Town - Benni McCarthy believes he is slowly making strides into becoming a better coach after his debut season at Cape Town City.

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The 40-year-old replaced Eric Tinker at the Citizens ahead of the 2017/18 campaign to take up his first professional coaching job.

In his first season, the former Bafana Bafana striker guided the Citizens to a fifth-place Absa Premiership finish and the MTN8 final - which they lost on penalties to SuperSport United.

However, City could avenge the United defeat at the end of the month when they meet Matsatsantsa once again at the Moses Mabhida Stadium for this season's MTN8 final - dubbed 'Act 2'.

In an exclusive three part interview with Sport24, McCarthy opened up about his process of learning and creating his own philosophy as he enters a new territory of football.

"In this business, in this job it is about learning," he said.

"I've played under managers (with) a lot of different personalities, characters, different ways of coaching (and) different ways of managing players.

"As a former player myself, I just adopted the way I would have liked to be treated when I was a player," said McCarthy.

"The kind of managers when I was at my very best and when I had the most success which managers I played under and how they handled me and that is how I try and put the same emphasis into my players.

"You also must understand how to bring out the best in them (players), I'm not saying that I know exactly but I am learning and getting better," he said.

"I just try and be a little bit different from every other coach we have in the league, I want to do it my way and not be like Jose Mourinho, Mark Hughes, Pep Guardiola, Pitso Mosimane or Gavin Hunt, I don't want to be like those guys. I look up to them, I watch what they do, how they get the best out of their players and how they get their teams to be so successful ... I take elements of that."

McCarthy continued: "I like to teach myself by taking bits from every other top coach in the country and foreign but then you just modify it to my liking and my philosophy - that is how I try and coach and hopefully I am making good strides in that direction."

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW: