Liverpool FC Forum

by **Leonmc0708** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 1:57 pm

Time Out: Benitez will kick himself if he meets these five again

Tuesday March 8th 2005

An open letter to Rafael Benitez, manager Liverpool FC.

Dear Rafa,

I've just finished reading a beautiful book by Mitch Albom, called The Five People You Meet In Heaven. It seeks to make sense of a man's time on earth by taking him on a journey through the afterlife. There, he is introduced to five people who - unknown to him - "changed his path forever".
Now I don't know if you're the philosophical sort, but the basic tenet of the book is that 'all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time'.

This is a principle that must be appealing to anyone with affection for Liverpool in their veins.

I know it's a big week for you and the boys, what with the Bayarena and its ghosts. Jerzy's howler at Anfield must have swung like a wrecking-ball through your senses. I was there and it felt like somebody had just groped the bride at the end of a perfect wedding. People spilled speechlessly off the premises afterwards. It was so quiet, you could hear a toilet flush on Kemlyn Road.

Anyway Rafa, the book has got me thinking. Who is changing your path? Who are the people quietly shaping your destiny, maybe without you knowing? You see, I think I know the answers. And, if I do, everything that's happening in your world right now may just start beginning to make sense.
I hate to say this but, through a lot of eyes, Liverpool look a bit of a mess. More injuries than a city hospital, more hiccups than a drunks' night shelter. A captain who seems preoccupied, a striker who looks disaffected, a goalkeeper who is clearly cursed.

The game at Newcastle on Saturday showcased the club's problems. Liverpool weren't just ordinary. Ordinary would have been acceptable. Actually, you can forgive ordinariness, if it is accompanied by effort. But Liverpool had at least half a team who were a dozen rungs short of ordinary. And, in any other business, that would obligate some kind of explanation to the other half.

For the record, this column would absolve Scott Carson, Steve Finnan, Jamie Carragher and John Arne Riise of all blame for the St James' Park fiasco. We'd also be inclined to give Sami Hyypia and Steven Gerrard the benefit of the doubt, if only on the basis of past heroics (though Hyypia does seem to be thinking in slow motion these days and Gerrard appears to have more on his mind than Tony Blair).
As for Milan Baros, we're puzzled.

The guy can be accused of many things (lack of vision, composure, physicality) but, until Saturday, we'd never have included lack of effort in that list. Yet, you picked Harry Kewell ahead of him for the Carling Cup final. A dilettante ahead of a worker. What message were you sending Rafa? That leaves us with Mauricio Pellegrino, Vladimir Smicer, Luis Garcia, Igor Biscan and Antonio Nunez. Five people. Could they be the ones?

We don't see a single Premiership footballer in this group. Pellegrino seems to find the pace of the English game primitive and offensive; Smicer flitters around like a nervous ballerina; Garcia is allergic to keeping the ball; Biscan mixes the epic (usually in Europe) with the comedic and Nunez looks like a Sunday League player who just got into the wrong taxi at Lime Street.

Rafa, we don't mean to be offensive but, if watching these five doesn't lead to some kind of profound awakening in your life, nothing will. Newcastle should be the turning point.
You are, patently, a good coach and a decent man. You have been beset by the worst epidemic of injuries to hit the city since the Blitz. Worse, you had your hand forced in having to sell your best striker. And now your captain is eyeing the door too.

Yet, you've never taken refuge in self-pity. You've turned around the careers of people like Riise and Djimi Traore (and some would say Biscan). You signed a special player in Xabi Alonso, only to see his season ended by Frank Lampard on New Year's Day. You persuaded Fernando Morientes to join when others were offering the guy more money. You recruited Carson from under Jose Mourinho's nose.

And, yes, you inherited some awful dross from Gerard Houllier. Surnames like Diouf, Diao and Cheyrou come squeamishly to mind. But Pellegrino? Garcia? Josemi? Nunez? They're not all Houllier's fingerprints either.

The point is you have a chance of reaching the last eight of the Champions League tomorrow night, despite the absence of a discernible Liverpool team at present. And Everton keep doing their damndest to hand you fourth place in the Premiership (short of signing Smicer in the transfer window, they couldn't have been kinder). You talk about "fighting to keep" Gerrard when it's not really clear if he's fighting to be kept.

So it all feels a little surreal right now.

Yesterday, the official club website listed "Xabi Alonso and 112 reasons to remain positive." The reasons weren't encouraging. Listed at 29? "Things can always be worse." At 39? "Man Utd are not going to win the Premiership." At 51? "Next season hasn't started yet." At 56? "Watching Igor Biscan grow into a cult hero."
Then again, maybe the most pertinent message was listed at 61. It read - "If you don't remain positive, you become bitter."
Guess it's something to cling to Rafa.

We wish you well.

Yours in sport,

Vincent Hogan

Hoganvin2@yahoo.ie

Source The Irish Independent

The link

by **FrankM** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:36 pm

Cant disagree with much he says.

Vincent iHogan is probably the best sports writer we have in Ireland.

Very well respected and writes for an unbiased newspaper, certainly with regards to sport anyway.

by **jonnymac1979** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:57 pm

Good article.

(FYI I've read The Five People You Meet In Heaven. Recommended. You'll read it in 1+1/2 hours.)

by **JC_81** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 5:58 pm

good article, the guy summed it up pretty well

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An open letter to rafael benitez - From the irish independent

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