By James Phillips
Rafael Benitez has got to be one of the luckiest men in football. Having escaped his sinking Liverpool ship with a hefty multi-million pound pay-off in the summer, he has somehow found himself in the plush position of Internazionale coach. After leaving Liverpool with a disillusioned squad lacking in cover across the entire pitch and without a Champions League place for the first time since 2003, he was given the generally unenviable task of replacing Jose Mourinho at the European Champions. Yet for Rafa, it represented a golden chance to remain at a massive club. Massimo Moratti, the Inter President, went with the opinion of the masses on the continent who remember Rafa’s achievements in winning the Spanish league twice with Valencia and claiming the UEFA Champions League title with Liverpool in 2005. What they tend to ignore is the way Rafa ultimately flopped at Liverpool and had to be shown the door.
Benitez’s case is unusual. Having inherited a squad from Gerard Houllier, a few (mainly short-lived) Spanish additions such as Luis Garcia, Xabi Alonso, Josemi and Antonio Nunez , saw the Reds claim the European Cup for a fifth time in incredulous circumstances. Garcia’s ghost goal against Chelsea in the semi-finals, Steven Gerrard’s late face-saver against Olympiakos in the group and the miracle of Istanbul itself were all remarkable aspects of a season where the Anfield outfit finished in 5th place in the Premier League, more than 30 points behind Jose Mourinho’s champions Chelsea and level on points with Bolton Wanderers. Benitez continued to live off this glory for the rest of his reign at Anfield, with a win over West Ham in the FA Cup Final the following year proving to be his only other piece of major silverware in six years at the helm.
The Premier League was Liverpool’s real desire, with no league title since 1990, and in that respect Rafa’s reign was an abject failure. After not even coming close in his first four seasons on Merseyside, he finally built a team strong enough to challenge for the 2008/09 title. But in the aftermath of his infamous rant at ‘Mr Ferguson’ his team wavered and drop points with a series of draws. Eventually the lack of depth in the squad saw Manchester United edge out the Anfield challenge and it was at this point that Liverpool really began to fall apart. With the peeved (due to Rafa’s advances on Gareth Barry the previous year) Xabi Alonso replaced by the injury-plagued Alberto Aquilani, a failure to significantly strengthen the squad proved terminal but at the start of the season nobody could quite have predicted the scouse team’s sudden decline. With the likes of Jamie Carragher, Gerrard, Javier Mascherano and Fernando Torres failing to perform as regularly as before, the frailties of Liverpool’s squad were revealed during a truly dismal campaign. The likes of Emiliano Insua, David Ngog and Maxi Rodriguez failed to cut the mustard while Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun and Albert Riera were just three of the many who have fallen foul of Benitez’s poor man management skills. Eliminated from the Champions League group stage, out early in both domestic cups and slipping as low as seventh in the league, Rafa had truly left Liverpool in a mess.
And while the loveable but seemingly hapless Roy Hodgson has so far failed to turn things around, with the ownership-based off-field turmoil not helping , Benitez is living the high life in Milan. Inheriting a outstanding treble-winning squad including World Player of the Year elect Wesley Sneijder, Samuel Eto’o, Diego Milito, Julio Cesar, Maicon and Cristian Chivu all in their peak, surely even Rafa can’t fail to at least win Serie A this season. But he has already dropped key points against Roma and a far from flying Juventus this season. Benitez’s ineptness was blatant for all to see in the Super Cup defeat to Atletico Madrid in Monaco where the same team who had claimed the Champions League trophy under Mourinho looked tactically confused and were deservedly beaten by their Spanish opposition. A 2-2 draw away at Dutch side Twente on the opening day of the Champions League also seemed unconvincing.
Yet Rafa’s luck should continue as he has a squad of excellent players at his disposal. The likes of Sneijder, Milito and particularly the on-form Eto’o can all win games on their own. This was clear during the Cameroonian-inspired thrashing of Werder Bremen on matchday two and the same player grabbed the winner at Cagliari this weekend. Surely Benitez’s poor man-management and bizarre manner in public will prove to be his downful in Italy, a country not known for much patience with managers. But unless Massimiliano Allegri can gel his Brazilian trio of Ronaldinho, Robinho and Pato with ex-Inter star Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Claudio Ranieri gets the best out of veterans Francesco Totti and Adriano at Roma, the man from Madrid may well achieve Serie A success with the brilliant squad that he has undeservedly inherited.
12 comments:
"...the man from Madrid may well achieve Serie A success with the brilliant squad that he has undeservedly inherited."
And that, basically, says it all! Great article.
Clueless article. Rafa was holding the ship together for us as best he could. New man in, look what happens. Do you think we would be where we are if Rafa was still there? No, we wouldnt.
Clearly he made mistakes, but what manager hasnt? Still made quality signings that for some reason gets overlooked. Tactically awesome manager.
And on the Inter point, he is lucky? Do you think its luck that over the past few years he has been wanted by a bunch of top clubs incluing Real & Inter. Are you sure its not because he is a top manager?
LFCs biggest mistake was letting Purslow get cosy with Gerrard and Carragher and let them call the shots. Carragher was going to be dropped, now look, he is utter sh!te and yet somehow undroppable.
Have you seen the reports about how much happier players are under Benitez style of play then Mourinho?
Eto now scoring goals for fun instead of playing almost as a right back for much of last season (his own words, not mine). Whole team playing better football, playing higher up the pitch, pressing higher, creating more chances, more goals.. etc.
You are clearly not an LFC fan... go check out twitter, check our forums, check the polls (there have been a few v.recently), ask Paul Tomkins et all for fans opinions, ask match goers, massive support for Benitez and most wish he was still our manager. He was one of us. You are clearly not, just some wannabe rep who follows 'sky sports/tabloid' cr@p. Totally out of touch with the fans. Way to go James.
Inter players are happier under Benitez than Mourinho?
Apart from Eto'o, I fear that is entirely incorrect. Based on evidence so far, neither is the team creating more chances, or playing better football, or scoring more goals. Benitez hasn't had the best of starts at Inter, and the number of Inter players who have publically grumbled (and went unpunished) is a bit concerning - that would not have happened under Mourinho.
That said, lets cut Rafa some slack. He hasn't even had a dozen Inter games, was not allowed any budget to buy his type of players in the summer, and has had to contend with unprecidented number of injuries so early into the season.
The jury is out on Rafa's Inter, and lets give him at least 6 months before we pass any judgements. Managing Inter is never an easy task, European Champions or not.
Poorly researched, anti-Rafa biased article. No doubt he has his man-management oddities, but who doesn't. Short-term spanish contingent? Alonso was at LFC for 5 years. Nunez and Josemi were stop-gaps. Garcia had a good spell and then time to move on.
Over-achieved with an average side time and time again, culminating in playing some of the most exciting attacking football in the PL to finish 2nd to United.
Failed after change in strategy by owners to tighten budgets, although undoubtedly made mistakes in his final season which he has acknowledged.
The majority on Merseyside don't see Rafa as a 'failure', but are disappointed that he couldn't maintain the challenge.
RH is suffering as he is not able to get the same level of quality from for the most part, the same squad.
Valencia suffered a similar feat after Ranieri stuggled to get the same level of quality from the same players.
Hi Bluenine... just to clarify, I said players were happier under Benitez's "style of play", not just under him as a person.
Im only saying this based on quotes from inter players in an article i read the other day. Im trying to find it to show you and will post. Its from either Telegraph or Guardian.
I appreciate that Mourinho is prob the best man-manager in the world right now. But he is not best tactically or for style of play, but this is old news.
I think player grumblings are down to players being so close to Mourinho rather than not liking Benitez. Are you an Inter fan? Give him time, you have a great, great manager there in RB.
At LFC his task was massive, and all done whilst USA owners were crushing the club. Do you know the ACTUAL NET SPEND under the yanks was only £3.5mil a season! For the last 3 transfer windows we have made a profit in transfers. All whilst 2 seasons ago finishing 2nd on 86 points, a record points total for second place.
We went all over Europe and won impressively, not just in 2005. We were there again in 2007. We went to and beat Inter, Real, Juve, Barca et all.
Hodgson out. Benitez back. *dreams*
Yeah, I am Nerazzuro for over 20 years, and hopefully know more inside stuff re Inter than the Guardian/Telegraph hacks and their La Gazzetta translations ;)
No one likes change, unless you directly benefit from it. Professional players are also like that, so one can understand most of them will not be happy with a new coach with new ideas. But I am a bit disappointed how Rafa has handled it, you cannot allow players to publically critise you or their teammates. I remember when once Balotelli did that, Mourinho dropped him from the squad for over a month. In the last month, I have heard grumblings from Milito, Chivu, Maicon, & Muntari - amd all went unpunished, and thats not a good sign.
As for how good Rafa is as a manager, it usually divides opinion. I appreciate your point of view (and pray you are right!), but I can also understand where the nay-sayers are coming from. At LFC, overall Rafa overachieved in Europe, and underachieved domestically. Thats how I see it.
James i am bitterly disappointed with the article i have just read. Have you not seen rafa's 50 greatest games on DVD yet?? firstly it wasn't Houllier's 2005 team. Rafa masterminded champions league success with his european style of soccer and in 2005 he sacrificed domestic position to achieve this with a poor poor liverpool team. Luis garica Liverpool's top scorer in the champions league 2005 was my main man's signing. Im not sure weather Liverpool's failures in the 2008-09 to win the league can be put down to a lack of depth in the squad, bearing in mind Liverpool won 10 of their last 11 games of the season including a destruction of Man Utd 4-1 at Old Trafford (i dont know if you can remember that game). Plus Liverpool's so say 'poor run of form' which consisted of three consecutive draws against decent opposition (how shocking) at the start of the year was not down to rafa's rant but due to off the field turmoil which plagued Liverpool ever since. a season in which Liverpool lost a mere 2 games and drew 11. a points total that no team in the history of the premier league has failed to win the league with. Lets put this into context this season Man Utd have already drawn 5 of their opening 8 fixtures and haven't even gone to Anfield yet!! Liverpool XI 2004- Dudek, troare, Hyypia, Carragher, finnan, Gerrard, Hamann, Murphy, Riise, Heskey, BarosLiverpool XI 2009- Reina, Arbeleo, Carragher, Skrtel, Aurelio, Mach, Xabi, Riera, Kuyt , Gerrard, TorresMan Utd X1 2004-Howard, Rio, Neville, Brown, Heize, Giggs, Ronaldo, Scholes, Keane, Rooney, Ruud VanMan Utd XI 2010- Van der sar, Rio, Vidic, Evra, Neville, Nani, Scholes, Fletcher, Valencia, Berba, Rooney??? Rafa Benitez team in 2009 in every single position was better than the team he was given at the start of his liverpool career in 2004. In comparison Ferguson's team over the same period has by no means been improved.Benitez career at Liverpool coincided with an established great team in Man Utd and the beginning of artificial situation at Chelsea which Roman's millions had created. Benitez's Liverpool also reached the champions league final in 2007, and liverpool were beaten semi-finalists in 2008 champions league and 2010 UFEA losing on both occasions in extra time. The gap Liverpool had to close on the big teams domestically was simply too great for even Rafa Benitez to achieve. But his success in european competitions is unquestionably one of the best around.RAFA FOR LIFE x
firstly it wasn't Houllier's 2005 team. Rafa masterminded champions league success with his european style of soccer and in 2005 he sacrificed domestic position to achieve this with a poor poor liverpool team. Luis garica Liverpool's top scorer in the champions league 2005 was my main man's signing. Im not sure weather Liverpool's failures in the 2008-09 to win the league can be put down to a lack of depth in the squad, bearing in mind Liverpool won 10 of their last 11 games of the season including a destruction of Man Utd 4-1 at Old Trafford (i dont know if you can remember that game). Plus Liverpool's so say 'poor run of form' which consisted of three consecutive draws against decent opposition (how shocking) at the start of the year was not down to rafa's rant but due to off the field turmoil which plagued Liverpool ever since. a season in which Liverpool lost a mere 2 games and drew 11. a points total that no team in the history of the premier league has failed to win the league with. Lets put this into context this season Man Utd have already drawn 5 of their opening 8 fixtures and haven't even gone to Anfield yet!! Liverpool XI 2004- Dudek, troare, Hyypia, Carragher, finnan, Gerrard, Hamann, Murphy, Riise, Heskey, BarosLiverpool XI 2009- Reina, Arbeleo, Carragher, Skrtel, Aurelio, Mach, Xabi, Riera, Kuyt , Gerrard, TorresMan Utd X1 2004-Howard, Rio, Neville, Brown, Heize, Giggs, Ronaldo, Scholes, Keane, Rooney, Ruud VanMan Utd XI 2010- Van der sar, Rio, Vidic, Evra, Neville, Nani, Scholes, Fletcher, Valencia, Berba, Rooney??? Rafa Benitez team in 2009 in every single position was better than the team he was given at the start of his liverpool career in 2004. In comparison Ferguson's team over the same period has by no means been improved.Benitez career at Liverpool coincided with an established great team in Man Utd and the beginning of artificial situation at Chelsea which Roman's millions had created. Benitez's Liverpool also reached the champions league final in 2007, and liverpool were beaten semi-finalists in 2008 champions league and 2010 UFEA losing on both occasions in extra time. The gap Liverpool had to close on the big teams domestically was simply too great for even Rafa Benitez to achieve. But his success in european competitions is unquestionably one of the best around.RAFA FOR LIFE x
Liverpool XI 2004- Dudek, troare, Hyypia, Carragher, finnan, Gerrard, Hamann, Murphy, Riise, Heskey, BarosLiverpool XI 2009- Reina, Arbeleo, Carragher, Skrtel, Aurelio, Mach, Xabi, Riera, Kuyt , Gerrard, TorresMan Utd X1 2004-Howard, Rio, Neville, Brown, Heize, Giggs, Ronaldo, Scholes, Keane, Rooney, Ruud VanMan Utd XI 2010- Van der sar, Rio, Vidic, Evra, Neville, Nani, Scholes, Fletcher, Valencia, Berba, Rooney??? Rafa Benitez team in 2009 in every single position was better than the team he was given at the start of his liverpool career in 2004. In comparison Ferguson's team over the same period has by no means been improved.Benitez career at Liverpool coincided with an established great team in Man Utd and the beginning of artificial situation at Chelsea which Roman's millions had created. Benitez's Liverpool also reached the champions league final in 2007, and liverpool were beaten semi-finalists in 2008 champions league and 2010 UFEA losing on both occasions in extra time. The gap Liverpool had to close on the big teams domestically was simply too great for even Rafa Benitez to achieve. But his success in european competitions is unquestionably one of the best around.RAFA FOR LIFE x
Some valid points made by all, but i stand by my point that Rafa ultimately failed at Liverpool. And they would be in the same position in the league if he was still there now, he started the slump and would have carried on. Inter will probably still do well this season under him, as like i said, he has a fantastic squad at his disposal. However, he has a tendency to alienate players and say the wrong things in the media. I'm not saying he's an awful manager, winning the Champions League in any circumstances is a massive achievement and he did very well at Valencia. But either way, his squad wasn't strong enough at Liverpool and this eventually showed, no league title for 20 years and it doesn't look like there's anymore coming soon. He was lucky to get the Inter job.Thank you anonymous Liverpool fans.
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