Liverpool FC Forum

[stmichael]

The following interview is taken from the latest edition of the UEFA mag. It's in the press reports section.

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Rafael Benitez has been in charge at Anfield just over six months, but he has already made his mark. Benitez is one of those people who things just seem to happen to, but then he's not been scared to take on the big jobs - replacing Hector Cuper at Valencia and now Gerard Houllier at Anfield. When things do happen to him, he has a more colorful way than most of describing them to the rest of the world.

In the time since he took over as Liverpool manager, he has favorably compared his office at the Melwood training ground with the Oval Office at the White House and admitted he was close to driving into an oncoming car on the way home from work because he forgot which side of the road is the correct one in England. As for his wife Montse, she has happily confided that Rafa keeps her awake at night shouting out instructions to the players he can see disobeying him in his sleep.

It was much the same at Valencia, where Benitez took a wrecking ball to the Real Madrid - Deportivo La Coruna hegemony that existed when he took over in 2001. Before Benitez's arrival at Los Ches, one of Valencia's own directors, Marcello Safont, in all seriousness asked his father-in-law, the club president Jaime Orti, "Why have we signed a bullfighter to coach our team?"

Somehow, and this says more about Safont, he had mixed up Rafael Benitez, the then 41 year-old Tenerife coach, with Manuel Benitez 'El Cordobes' - one of Spain's most legendary toreros, who was 65, with a head of wavy grey hair and a habitual wearer of knee-length pink socks, tight green and gold breeches and a figure-hugging gold-ribbed jacket. In his work he also tended to use a red cape rather than a set of traffic cones and a bag of footballs. It could only happen to Rafa.

Before he left Valencia, in tears brought on by the "toughest decision of my life", Benitez had coined the wonderful phrase about "asking for a sofa and being given a lampshade" to describe his frustration at the hopeless state of relationship with the Valencia technical director Jesus Garcia Pitarch, who had signed the less-than-impressive sticker Nestor Fabian Canobbio Bentaberry, instead of Benitez's choice Samuel Eto'o.

There are more, loads more, such stories in Benitez's file of anecdotes. But perhaps its the fact that he has been working so hard and so late that he drove home on the wrong side of the road before falling asleep, only to rant and rave in his sleep that best encapsulates the man who is charged with putting Liverpool back at the top, not only in England, but in Europe, too.

And the obvious question is: which players was he roaring at in his sleep? Steven Gerrard, Harry Kewell, Xabi Alonso... or Kenny Dalglish, Terry McDermott, Ian St John? Benitez, you see, is living, breathing, eating, watching and sleeping the entire 'This Is Anfield' experience.

Ask him about Montse's playful revelations about his night-time eccentricities, and he admits, "It is true that I think too much about football, I always have. I spend ten hours or more everyday in Melwood and when I come back to my house I still think about football.

"I'm on the sofa watching a video, maybe an old one from great Anfield nights in the 1970's or a scouting video or one taken of our next opponents, then I talk to my wife about my day at Melwood and all the things that are still unresolved in my head. I fight hard to find some time for my daughters, but the rest... it's football."

Focused then, obviously. Dedicated, yes. But there's more... "If someone asked me specifically if my challenge is to create a Liverpool as the one in which Kenny Dalglish was the star, I'd say, 'No, no, no!'

"My challenge is to find, teach and inspire the old Liverpool FC spirit, the mentality, the philosophy of respect and the original values of football that our club made famous over generations. Rather than try and mimic one individual era or team, the task now is to distill all of these great qualities that made Liverpool FC successful and legendary and then base the new era around then - but with some of the modern ideas and discoveries adapted into the mix.

"In the past, Liverpool's team hunted like a pack. They were a true team, the team was the star. I believe it is mentality that all great teams of any era have possessed - and you have to work for that. It's not just at Liverpool where that has changed. There is now a lot of money in the business and a spirit of all for one and one for all is very, very hard to recover.

"I believe that the key thing for Liverpool is to try to get as close as we can to that original mentality of being a great team and individuals hunting together in a pack." To that end, for example, he has asked players to room with different team-mates to break down cliques in the squad. Jamie Carragher, who had always shared with Michael Owen, now rooms with his defensive partner Sami Hyypia.

Benitez says the emblem of all he is talking about is Bill Shankly, the architect of Liverpool's success of the 1960's and 1970's. "Shankly changed Liverpool's mentality into the hungry one that fuelled their desire to win," he says. "That was the basis for the Liverpool teams that later, even without him, went on to win those four European Cups.

"Bill Shankly brought fresh air to Anfield. They breathed ambition, discipline and success. So now what my wife and I do is learn about him every day. Montse spends some of her day reading books about the history of this great club and every day, when I finally get home from Melwood, she teaches me more and more about Liverpool FC and what made it great.

"In a way she is my special gift because my wife not only manages the house and our family life, but she is also a Doctor of Law. She is a very intelligent person and I look for advice from her in crucial, sometimes controversial situations that need her expertise."

Rafa and Montse met in the late 1980's, in their local health club in the center of his native Madrid. Rafa was not in the Abasota gymnasium as a member, however, but as a fitness trainer and as a coordinator of the gym staff, at the same time he was working part-time as a successful youth-team coach at Real Madrid. Indeed, one Benitez's junior Real sides became Spanish champions, a taste of glory that was to become addictive, and when Vincente Del Bosque became stand-in trainer of Los Merengues in 1993/94, he chose Benitez as his assistant.

The two men had come through the ranks together, the elder man a legendary full-back whose career path and rise to stardom was like a Hollywood script - win trophies, retire, learn the ropes, take over as coach, win Real Madrid's eight and ninth European Cups and, somehow, master the art of handling the new Galactico culture. But by the time Del Bosque was ruthlessly sacked by the club to which he'd given over 30 years of successful service, his one-time friend had become something of a thorn in his side.

Benitez continued to work part-time in his gym, right up until 1995 when he took over at Real Valladolid. Never having been a top player is no longer a handicap to becoming an elite coach, as Arrigo Sacchi, Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho have proved. But its still remarkable to consider that while Wenger was already a respected title-winning coach in 1995, Benitez was still organizing the gym members at Abasota in their lunchtime games of five-a-side. Hernando Alvarado succeeded Benitez at the gym when he took control at Valladolid and recalls, "Rafa knew shouting wasn't needed to keep order and, what's more, he always had a big smile on his face."

Valladolid were relegated in his first season in charge and he had an almost equally unhappy spell at Osasuna before leading Extramadura to promotion from the Spanish second division in 1977. He then took a gap year - to study football and coaching in England and Italy - before returning to management to coach Tenerife. It was there, in 2000, he was asked to manage Valencia. One year on he had muscled Del Bosque's Real Madrid from the top of La Liga and won Valencia's first title for 31 years. And that, it seems, is where his friendship with Del Bosque's fractured - seemingly irrevocably so.

Del Bosque, while willing to talk about his protégé, is very clear to why the two men are no longer friends. "Do I still talk to him? No, I must say clearly that we do not have any kind of relationship or contact," says Del Bosque. "It is true that he was my assistant at Real Madrid and we worked at the club for many years, but I wasn't some kind of 'maestro' to him. Indeed I agree with people who say that he lives for football. He is a very prepared professional and he proved that point, there is no question about it. But the relationship between Benitez and me was eroded totally by our clashes between Real Madrid and Valencia.

"He used to coach in amateur football in Madrid but his knowledge was quite good when he first came to Real's Ciudad Deportiva [Real's youth set-up]. You could immediately see he had the ingredients to be a manager. He paid a massive amount of attention to other managers' work and then tried to apply these lessons to his own job."

Hence, perhaps, the relentless study of how not only Shankly, but also Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan developed Liverpool and made them one of the most feared and respected teams in England and in Europe.

Del Bosque's rather tart response to questions about his relationship with Benitez taps into another stand of the Liverpool manager's character, one that contrasts to the charming, cheerful, take-me-as-you-find-me-person that has cultivated in public.

At Valencia his relationship with the aforementioned Garcia Pitarch, who was effectively his line manager, was poisonous, the two fought relentlessly and it is testimony to Benitez's extraordinary strength of purpose and character that this feud did not prevent him from succeeding last season, but actually fueled his desire to win.

The departure of Argentinean midfielder Kily Gonzalez from the Mestalla at the start of season 2003/04 was a long, heated and very public process with not much love lost on either side. Gonzalez was a hero to the Valencia faithful, but he did not fit the Benitez blueprint either as a player or a person. It was a cleaner quicker process with Danny Murphy once Benitez reached Anfield, but the evidence indicates that the Liverpool manager has no qualms, once a decision is taken, in facing up to the consequences.

But even Benitez might have been dismayed when, just minutes after the bombshell press conference where he announced he was leaving Valencia, he saw David Albelda trot out to drop heavy hints that el Mister was indulging in mercenary behavior.

Benitez had taken the captaincy away from keeper Santiago Canizares and handed it to Albelda, turned him into a Spanish international and helped him to dominate in La Liga and the Champions League. Yet despite all that, Albelda showed as much scorn as gratitude, in public at least, when Benitez stuck to his principles and walked away from a club that was, he says, already negotiating to appoint Claudio Ranieri.

For all his charm, intelligence and charisma, 44-year-old Benitez is a demanding, driven, blindingly focused man. More players will feel bruised by their encounters with him before he succeeds of fails in rebuilding the Red Empire. "Coaches and players earn a great deal of money these days and we have to be super-professional," he says.

"If your level or performance and consistency depend on your physical state then either you work professionally or you might as well go and play football with your mates in the park. Obviously some players moan and gripe about a coach banging this message out to them all the time. I let my players know that I am not demanding a Spartan lifestyle from them, but I do expect order, discipline and professionalism."

The vagaries of the transfer market being what they are and with the uncertainty over Liverpool's ownership adding to the mix, much of Benitez's initial work at Anfield has been about playing style, formation and rhythm, rather than planning to match Chelsea or Real Madrid pound for pound.

Explaining what he is trying to achieve with his squad, Benitez says, "I never change my style its just a case of blending my thoughts and changing a few details from what I succeeded with in Spain.

"The 4-2-3-1 formation of Valencia is just the position of the players before beginning the match. The most important thing is tactics, the movement of your players once the ball starts rolling. You can start with one formation, but it will change depending on the skills and the form of your players.

"For instance, when we arrived at Liverpool we knew that Milan Baros and Djibril Cisse couldn't play in a 4-2-3-1 and we changed to 4-4-2. And if you play with Xabi Alonso and Didi Hamann in the midfield, it is a different 4-4-2 from when Stevie Gerrard is in the team because he is more offensive and that is more of a 4-5-1.

"There are loads of different variations and we can change formation three or more times in the same match because, if things are going badly, you have to look for alternatives.

"Do you switch the left-footed guy to the right wing in order to let him come inside and shoot on goal or keep him at the other side of the pitch in order for him to seek out top-quality crosses? The possibilities are infinite. What I can say is that English football at some points chose to move on from the concept of pass and move. But we are trying to inculcate that again here, also taking into account he way the modern game has developed."

Benitez welcomes being bracketed with Mourinho, because the two share an utterly ruthless dedication to winning and the work ethic behind it. But he is quick to point out that neither of them invented the style of play that is currently dominating European Football.

"The coaches I'll take as my reference points are Johan Cruyff with Barcelona, Arrigo Sacchi's AC Milan era and John Toshack's Real Madrid. Sacchi stands, I think, as the greatest coach of the modern era and his model is still prevailing at the moment.

"And I think that it would be an almost impossible task to perfect that system, the concept of football that he used to make AC Milan dominant in Europe. They had tremendously good footballers and they worked relentlessly as a team whether or not they had the ball.

"I've heard people talking about Jose Mourinho and myself 'reinventing' the style of football because of the style of our play, but I find that statement hugely over exaggerated. Mourinho and I simply recovered the values of the 'collective'.

"Football had become addressed to marketing and the 'star' name concept. Valencia and Porto each proved that the work of a team as a whole is sometimes the better route to follow."

Benitez's record already shows that the-team-as-the-star idea is very much en vogue and he is convinced teams need to show a little 'va va oof' as well as 'va va voom'. "For me it is important to play good football in order to win, but if you have to choose one or the other of those two ideas then you always, always choose to win.

"Remember, the only that remains in the statistical book is the final score. You can guard in your memory the way in which you achieved that success, but there comes a time when you loose your memory and the statistics are the things that remain in the books.

"As for the criticism I faced at Valencia over the side being 'violent', I can reiterate that a team must be aggressive if it wants to be competitive. This is my philosophy of football and I think it is the same for all the teams and their managers.

"Solid defence and quick counter attack is the dominant theme in world football now, and to achieve it you have to press you opponents because if you minimize their space on the pitch, the percentage chance of them making a mistake is much bigger. I think that Is simple logic."

So, where will all this history plundering, aggressive, obsessively professional, player cajoling, winning-is-everything approach to football played in a Red Shirt get Benitez?

After winning his first La Liga title he promised, in a private conversation with his wife, that he would one day win the Champions League. Montse just happened to mention it to a newspaper and so here it is hanging over Benitez's head. Does it weigh heavy?

"Well," he considers, "I am trying to fulfill my promise. I will fight to win the Champions League here, if the future allows me to do that, because I want to win the greatest title there is.

"I'm ambitious and I remember telling the Liverpool board before Christmas that I'm still very young and so I still have all the excitement and hunger that a manger can have in the early years of his career.

"I want to win great victories and titles and, for that, I have to thank Real Madrid. Working in the youth system there, even part-time, made me realize that there was something very useful hidden in my brain. And that is, "You always have to win."

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not a lot you can say to that apart from

[Sean]

Good read.....can't deny the mans commitment or ambition.

[dawson99]

that is pure genius. enough said

[Woollyback]

Excellent article.

This man epitomises The Liverpool Way and will take us to the top, believe me

Viva el Rafa

[el_stinger]

why did you post it twice dude? excellent read but.

[maure_is_sh1t]

Looks like the premiership trophy will be ours within these few years...haha

[Wangdangle]

Just goes to confirm my tohughts that there is NOBODY I would rather have in charge at the moment than Benitez.

Have faith people.

YNWA

[whylongball?]

excellent!

[anfieldadorer]

bowing too, stmike

[dawson99]

id like the legend roberts to read this, then talk about rafa and his desire and passion!

[dia- mond]

He is giving Liverpool his all,the least we can give him is our unwavering support.
Brilliant read.

[hawkmoon269]

We have a committed manager, one who seems to have the passion, and understands what it means to be a Liverpool FC fan.

All we need now are for the players to adopt that desire.

And the board to give Rafa the money to reverse the malaise from the Houllier era.

Walk on...

[Paul C]

The guy is a genius and the only man for the job at Anfield, give him time and he will take us back where we belong

[lakes10]

"I want to win great victories and titles and, for that, I have to thank Real Madrid. Working in the youth system there, even part-time, made me realize that there was something very useful hidden in my brain. And that is, "You always have to win."

HMMM yes thank Real Madrid ...more like Real Madrid take notice that i am biging you up so you will ask me to be your manager.

but apart from that i liked what he had to say i hope that if he stays he will do what he says and win us stuff....the clocks ticking

[hawkmoon269]

"I want to win great victories and titles and, for that, I have to thank Real Madrid. Working in the youth system there, even part-time, made me realize that there was something very useful hidden in my brain. And that is, "You always have to win."

HMMM yes thank Real Madrid ...more like Real Madrid take notice that i am biging you up so you will ask me to be your manager.

but apart from that i liked what he had to say i hope that if he stays he will do what he says and win us stuff....the clocks ticking

Are you always so cynical?