Brilliant Article on Rafa

Sunday October 03 2010

'Football is a lie.' Anybody who has spent any time with Rafael Benitez will have heard these words. There are a million lies in football, a hundred thousand ways for the flimflam men and the bullshitters to prosper.

For Liverpool to prosper, it was concluded that Benitez would have to leave. His exit, it was said, would lead to an explosion of joy among the ranks of the players who had been worn down by his obsessiveness, his relentless demands and his cold, cold heart. The club, it was said, needed a break from his plotting. Things could only get better.

Today, as Benitez's Inter Milan face Juventus at the San Siro, Liverpool play a team one point above them in the Premier League: Blackpool. Before the game, the supporters will be marching in the streets in protest against Tom Hicks and George Gillett whose duplicity Benitez did so much to expose. The chief executive Christian Purslow, brought in to sell the club, is still there, still looking for owners, still reassuring the key players that all will be well. Within days, Liverpool could be in administration but, for many Liverpool fans, the possible nine-point penalty (there could be a loophole which allows Liverpool to avoid it which would almost certainly lead to a legal objection from Liverpool's challengers) is preferable to Hicks and Gillett refinancing. On the pitch, Roy Hodgson, the man Purslow appointed, appears to have made things worse.

And all it took was the removal of Benitez to bring the feel-good factor back.

Many ignored the complexities involved in managing a club owned by leverage kings while Benitez was in charge. Only now is the extent of his achievement becoming clear.

His refusal to play the media game or to back down or to be pragmatic in any way alienated those who form opinion. For a long time, nobody listened to their opinions at Anfield. In the last year, they did.

"Did we make mistakes? Obviously," Benitez said last week. "But 82, 86 points, four trophies, three more finals in a difficult time when the owners were changing, when the chief executives were changing. A lot of things were changing. Now people can see it, no? It was a big, big problem."

Benitez took the hits but held the club together. If he was shunned by the opinion-formers, it wasn't because he wasn't political. In the last year he went, as one ally puts it, "to war". He always felt there was a better way to do things

Benitez wants to look forward to his challenge at Inter, it is how he has persuaded himself a football man should be, but he cannot shake the sadness about his departure from the club and the city he and his family love. Those who know him well say he is more relaxed now than he was during that draining final twelve months.

After three hours in his company on Wednesday, I could see why his friends want him to talk to the media more often. David Conachy, the Sunday Independent photographer, was surprised by his warmth and wit, having expected a brooding, more explosive, presence.

But Benitez is wary too. Football is a lie and he has observed how some use the media to promote their versions of the story. At one point, he jumps from his seat, refusing to pose in a certain way because it is, he says, the kind of picture one of his enemies would sit for. Above all else, he is wary of being a phoney.

Liverpool, it was said, needed a manager who would put his arm around a player's shoulder. But they can't hug out their problems, as Hodgson is discovering.

"Everybody has weak points and I have weak points for sure," Benitez says. "People say I don't put my arm round the shoulder. It's not true. I am talking to the players every day. I like to know about them but my priority is football."

His priority has always been football. "I have been doing this job all my life," he says and it is barely an exaggeration. "Always in my head I was a manager."

He talks about his childhood in terms of football. His father was a commercial director of a hotel -- "he didn't like too much football" -- and a busy man so "I remember my mother taking me to the Bernabeu for training".

His career as a player was ended by injury but he was ready. Managing is his lifetime's work. He sleeps a few hours each night and he is always thinking of ways to be better. He may think too much.

"I think the manager is eternally dissatisfied because he wants more and more and more. I'm this kind of manager. I like to improve, to do better every time. Some times you know that you will need more time so you have to be calm but still you have to improve."

Does he ever look back on his great nights with pride and contentment?

"I have notes of everything, every single season, every single day. What I did this, or how I changed my approach to a player. One hundred per cent, I am analysing and I am always talking to my staff."

It's hardly The Time of Our Lives with Jeff Stelling. Benitez couldn't act clubbable. Last month, Jamie Carragher gave an interview in which he talked of the need for Liverpool to get back to traditional values.

"We've had situations like Martin O'Neill and Steve Bruce criticising Liverpool and they were right," Carragher said. "We shouldn't be getting involved with stuff like that. Everyone else should look at Liverpool and say they have dignity, class. I mean, like the way people look at Arsenal."

It was unfortunate timing as Arsene Wenger then spent the next month fighting with everyone, including match officials.

"I didn't see his quote but I like Carra as a player and he has to keep focusing on doing things well for Liverpool. Maybe he has an opinion but I don't think Shankly would agree with him. For me the manager of Liverpool Football Club has to defend the club and his players against everyone. The name of the other manager doesn't matter. If you know the story inside you will understand why these managers are talking and I think for our fans it's very clear.

"If you see the friends that these people have you will understand why. It's obvious that there are people who are close to some people and they like to protect each other."

Benitez was apart and, equally as dangerously, became convinced of his own separateness. Again, it is the way he believes a manager has to be.

"When you work hard and you have an idea and you want to carry on with your idea people say 'oh you are stubborn'. I think you have to have a conviction when you work with the players, when you know the players and when you talk with your staff. It's essential if you want to convince them. All the managers have the same idea."

He was a physical education teacher and one of the ways he sees himself as different to his predecessor at Inter, Jose Mourinho, is in his approach to footballers.

"I like to teach them. I am sure if they learn they will know things for the rest of their lives. If you can win in one year with the best players, saying we have to win this game, this game, the next game that's one way. But when you teach them the way and you ask them how to do things, it's different. At the end, they will know and they will remember all their lives."

He is trying to change things at Inter while keeping the things they did well under Mourinho. Before he arrived in Milan, he read in the Spanish press how Mourinho could control everything from his manager's office at the Angelo Moratti Training Centre. There was a window with a panoramic view that allowed him to see all that was happening on the training fields. During my time in Benitez's spartan office on Wednesday, I couldn't see this window. Football is a lie.

Mourinho's achievements cannot be disputed but Benitez would not be the man he is if he didn't think he could do more.

"The players are happy because we are trying to play more football, more on the floor, the passing is better. They were doing good things in the past and especially in the transition, the counter-attack, they were quite good. Now we have more possession but it takes time to adjust. It will be almost impossible to win more trophies in one year, we know that, but at least we will try to win some of them with style."

Inter are top of Serie A but one defeat is a crisis in Italy. He has the squad that won the European Cup, but he may have liked to have new faces to challenge the players who achieved so much last season.

Benitez is not going to rest on somebody else's laurels. On Wednesday night, Inter beat Werder Bremen 4-0. It was an important result but again perhaps football lied as it was not a performance that merited 4-0.

Inter suits Benitez too. He looks to Turin, to Juventus and sees the questionable powerbase of Italian football. He looks to the south, to Rome and sees the capital with its influence and he looks to Milanello, AC Milan's famed training camp and he sees Silvio Berlusconi and his authority. Italy is the kind of country where a man can collect enemies.

His friends from Liverpool are still around. They are thinking about Inter now but they form a government in exile, always aware of what is happening at the club they love.

He has changed, he says, everybody changes. The former Real Madrid manager Luis Molowny, who died earlier this year, once told him that it is important to be patient. Molowny's name is written on a piece of paper pinned to his office wall so his advice is on his mind. He says he is more patient now than he used to be.

The signings that didn't work out at Liverpool might be among the things he'd change. "I'll say it again, we made mistakes. But people are talking about players who were not good enough, if you put five or six of these players together, the cost would be five million. It's not easy to wheel and deal and at the same time to win and sign players like Torres, Reina, Mascherano, Aquilani, Skrtel, Johnson, Lucas Leiva, Agger or Kuyt."

These are the players he left behind. "I was very clear that when I left we had a better squad than we had in the past, and a better team. We knew we had to bring in better players. We left a good team, a very good team. A lot of people are talking about the legacy but the legacy is fantastic. When I left the club, Mascherano, Benayoun and Riera were there, along with Carra, Gerrard, Spearing, Darby. Insua, Cavalieri and Shelvey. They cannot talk about legacy when Purslow and Hodgson signed seven players. They have already changed the squad."

Gerard Houllier said he left a legacy too, claiming that in Istanbul the players told him it was his side that had won the European Cup. "I didn't see Houllier on the way to Istanbul or at half-time," he said sardonically. "After the game, I gave him permission to come into the dressing room and we couldn't get him out, even with boiling water! That's a Spanish expression."

Among Benitez's mistakes were Robbie Keane and the alienation of Xabi Alonso in one crucial summer. Keane was, he says, a "good player and a fantastic professional who needed a target man with him". But, crucially, Gareth Barry was Benitez's priority. "Barry was the first but I was not doing the business and I couldn't control it. The timing was a problem. I thought we had the money and it was obvious we didn't have the money."

Benitez had rumbled Hicks and Gillett before this but as they scrambled and failed to find the money for Barry, his plans unravelled. The collateral damage was significant too: Xabi Alonso was lost.

"In the last season Alonso played his best season for us. That is the reason people are talking about him. It was his last year when he gave us his best."

In Alonso's last season, Benitez drove his team towards the title. Liverpool finished second, a stunning achievement given his resources and the apocalypse that was heading Liverpool's way thanks to Hicks and Gillett and the recession caused by men like them.

Benitez's handling of the attempted sale of Alonso the year before alienated the player and ensured he would go. But Benitez planned to replace him with Alberto Aquilani and the Montenegrin Stevan Jovetic. The sale of Alonso was a controversial and ruthless decision and, as so often at Liverpool, he wasn't allowed full control of the solution.

Instead he was given half of what he asked for. Suddenly the money disappeared, as it tends to when working for the indebted. Benitez's last season began with Liverpool as many people's title favourites. But the manager couldn't conceal the club's problems anymore.

"It was a long time, it wasn't just one thing," he says of the process that wore him down. "The feeling was that something was wrong, we couldn't do what we wanted to do. We were preparing the signings and the sales but we could see that we have some targets and we didn't do it."

Christian Purslow was the new chief executive. Rick Parry had infuriated Benitez with the pace at which he got things done but he insists there was nothing personal. "I had a very good relationship with David Moores and Rick Parry but the only thing I wanted to do was to do things quicker because we didn't have too much money. To be fair, sometimes we were doing good business without big money and sometimes we lost players. After the Americans arrived, everything changed. I thought it would be easier the first year, we signed Torres and everything was going well but little by little we had some money problems and all the decisions were subject to the money issues."

It is the most understated way of describing the meltdown. The last season became attritional. Stories filtered out about an unhappy squad, how Rafa had lost the dressing room.

"It's not true that I lost the dressing room. It was obvious that maybe some players were not happy but the majority of the players were very good professionals who were surprised by these stories in the same newspapers by the same journalists. Who was leaking them?"

He wasn't looking to be loved but he believed he would stay at Liverpool.

Last week Christian Purslow remarked that "Rafa's exit was about as clearcut a case of mutual consent as I have ever been involved in in my life. Both sides thought it was time for a change, both sides said so at the time, if you go back and check."

Benitez saw his comment. "I read that he said this -- I was preparing for the next season but after the meeting with Mr Broughton and Mr Purslow I realised that I had to accept the offer they made. I was very sad and my family were devastated when we realised after these meetings that we would leave. I knew I had to go."

He will not be drawn on what changed but after a couple of summers being denied the money he thought he was getting, it's not hard to conclude that his transfer budget and the money he would get from player sales had something to do with it.

He remains attached to the place. He is aware of the protests against Tom Hicks and George Gillett but doesn't want to talk too much out of "respect for the fans and the club". All he knows is that the club is still looking for investment a year after being told the cavalry was on its way. Christian Purslow is nobody's idea of the cavalry.

Benitez spent last year waiting for the investment, meeting with potential investors. Now he has a new challenge while survival is Liverpool's.

But Liverpool is a part of him. It is the place he and his wife call home.

"I am monitoring carefully everything that's going on there. I have a lot of friends there and I received a 'Justice' scarf from the Hillsborough families group that is in my office at home. Again out of respect I think it is important that I talk a little bit about the past but especially about the future. For me, at this moment, that is Inter Milan. I keep my house there, we are based in Liverpool and in the future we will be there again."

Right now, he thinks about Inter and the challenges but he knows more than most what football can bring and how he might return.

"You never know, football is football. It could be in five years' time, ten years' time, two years' time. We have two years of a contract here, we are really pleased here, the people are very nice, the fans are very similar to Liverpool fans, with passion, so everything is going well."

But Liverpool is home? "Yeah-it's the only house we have. Liverpool is my home and I will come back."

In his last year, he fought many battles in pursuit of victory in one war. He wanted the right to do things as he wanted to do them. He wanted so much, he always did, and he always wanted more.

Those close to Benitez dismiss Purslow as a man who thought he knew too much about too many things. It is a criticism many have thrown at Rafa too. They saw him as a political animal and he was unwavering in his belief that his way was the right way.

But they underestimated him too, they always have. They concluded that he was cunning. He wasn't cunning, he just wasn't as pliable as some expected.

With his dishevelled appearance and his lack of personal vanity, Benitez is football's Lieutenant Columbo. And he is always looking for 'just one more thing'. The obsessional pursuit drove him mad and brought him into dangerous conflict with the powers that remain at Liverpool. But he knew no other way. He didn't ask for much: only perfection.

On Wednesday, David Conachy was pushing Rafa for more pictures. He doesn't like having his picture taken or, more precisely, he doesn't like having a certain type of picture taken. Dave wanted to take every type of picture.

"Just one more," Dave said to him several times.

"You always say just one more," Rafa smiled, looking at his watch, as he tried to get away.

"He's a perfectionist, Rafa, you can understand that," I said.

Rafa looked at me. "I didn't say it was bad. It's just dangerous."

Sunday Independent

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nAz

The poor decisions at board room are affecting us.

The poor decisions at board room are affecting us.
A fish rots from his head.

I am finding it very hard to warm up to Roy Hodgson, and looking around me a lot of Liverpool fans feel the same way. It has been a dissapointing start to the league season . From the corresponding fixtures last season we had 8 points compared to this season's 6 points. People will do well to keep in mind that Roy had won just one away game last season.

Fingers should not be pointed to Roy Hodgson alone, but more towards the Board for sacking Rafa Benitez. For all his flaws, he alwayskept Liverpool in contention. Made Liverpool the no.1 team in Europe and competitive domestically. With the boardroom drama most Liverpool fans did not expect to win the league , but he got them 2nd Place running Manchester United very close in the process. Following season Benitez should have been backed in the transfer market. Liverpool were looking for the final push which will ultimately win them no.19 which the fans crave for. Instead Liverpool replaced 3 influential players with 3 new players.
Their were no additions made to the squad. The debt was crippling the whole club. The rest as they say is history. Liverpool went out in the group stages of the Champions League, a tournament that they had done brilliantly in the past, and finished a very disappointing 7th in the league. The manager was not without blame.

The signings of Aquilani, Johnson had not worked as planned and their were questionable tactics employed at times. But was it reason enough to sack the manager?
It would have been if we had an ambitious board that saw 7th place as a complete failure. A board that wanted nothing but good football to be played and wanted Liverpool to win trophies. But Liverpool don't have that. What they have is a board that does not represent Liverpool FC.

A chairman that is a Chelsea season ticket holder, and a investment banker who claims to be a fan of the club but has a thing for playing football manager. (He spoke to Van Der Vaart's agent without the consent of the manager). Then you have the 2 hated figures in Gillet and Hicks. No wonder the fans feel alienated
from the club.

Benitez did not have a board that understood LFC or understood football. They started believing the media claims, who were out to sell stories, that Rafa Benitez was not the man to lead Liverpool. The media continuously maligned the Liverpool manager. Zonal marking, rotation, the lack of understanding of the English game
were things that were used against Benitez. They needed to make a quick buck, and stories on Liverpool sell. The sad thing is that the board bought all the bull****e, and went ahead and sacked the manager. Many Liverpool fans did not like the decision who they considered as one of their own.The Anfield faithful had warmed up to him in a way they'd probably never do with Hodgson. He was a humble man, who loved the club, who did his best to get results, and made a team which was feared across Europe.

It was the best times for a Liverpool fan, who did not see the hay days of 70s and 80s. Liverpool were the no.1 team in Europe for a short while. The supporters and players feared no one in Europe. Their was a feeling that on a good day, Liverpool can thrash anyone. Scoring 4 goals against teams like United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Madrid was not the exception but the norm. When it used to click, the Liverpool machine was hard to stop. The fans recognized that,and at times it genuinely felt that Liverpool were 2-3 players short of dominating world football again. In a way Benitez was a victim of the name Liverpool Football Club.

.The press and the people expect Liverpool to win major honours just because of who they are. While in reality Benitez had a net spend on 16 million per season, and with that kind of resource, he did a fairly decent job. Many people accused Liverpool fans of trusting him blindly, but the man had earned that trust.
Wtih nights like Istanbul , Cardiff ,Old Trafford , Bernabau, Nou Camp, San Siro and Stamford Bridge.

They went and Hired Roy Hodgson, who has immediately came out and said that expectations need to be lowered. I don't think many Liverpool supporters had much ambition to start with this season, but in a funny way a 4th place would be considered as an amazing season , while last season the failure to achieve that resulted in the
manager getting the sack. A manager that had a proven record in getting Liverpool to the top 4 spot. Liverpool had turned into Newcastle and it was pretty much the final nail in the coffin of ' The Liverpool way'. The play so far has been uninspiring, with teams like Sunderland, Birmingham and Northampton Town dominating
Liverpool for vast periods of play. The loss of Mascherano has been hard to take, and the new signing Poulsen has been so bad that even the ardent Lucas hater would much rather have Lucas starting before him.

Maybe things will pick up soon, maybe the team will 'adapt' to Hodgson's style of play, but so far it looks like
the honest Englishman cannot inspire the players. Roy's a good man, but he has alienated the Liverpool supporters. His remark on the protest as an 'unecassary distraction' did not go down to well. His constant bigging up the opposition is another pet hate of most LFC fans.

The likes of Agger, who is perhaps the best CB in the club not getting a look in before the ageing Carragher or the hard working but less talented Skrtel is an indication to the way Roy wants to play from the back. The defence plays far too deep, just like any Roy's side and it is hurting Liverpool.

I would like to think he will turn it around, but the head says otherwise at the moment. Liverpool have not dominated a single game so far this season.

In a funny way, Rafa Benitez, the current manager of European champions Inter Milan, has nothing to win in his current job. It is Mourinho's team, the only way he can ever shut up his critics is to comeback and win the premier league. Maybe their is a date with destiny.

In the short term though, if results don't improve, its time for another Liverpool legend to step in... Kenny Dalglish.

Gaurav

To discuss this topic or anything Liverpool, please visit our father forum Soccer 24-7 by clicking here.

You only have one chance to make a first impression...

6 games into the season and things are not merry at Anfield at the moment to say the least. So many things are going wrong for the club at the moment but hey, at least we are above Everton, just about.

At the top you have the owners, two Americans who came to the club in 2007 beating off competition from Dubai International Capital. Who the hell rejects rich Arabs over Americans? I mean, even without looking at any books or anything, I could tell you an Arab has sh*t loads of money. Some people try to overcomplicate too many things, jeez.

Former Liverpool Chairman David Moores said at the time, "This is a great step forward for its shareholders and its fans." Oh David, how wrong were you? 3 years later and no significant squad investment has been made and there is still no work started on the new stadium, evidence that the Americans taking over the club has not been a step forward for anyone. At the end of the day, you sold the club to the Americans because you wanted to make a quick buck.

"We have purchased the club with no debt on the club," said Gillett at the time of the take over. "We believe in the future of the club, the future of the league, the new TV contracts are outstanding and we are proud to be a part of it.

"This is truly the largest sport in the world, the most important sport in the world, and this is the most important club in the most important sport in the world.

"What a privilege we have to be associated with it and we hope that with the good graces of Rick and his team that we will have on-the-pitch success and economic success."

Ahhhhhh, it was like music to all Liverpool fans ear, what we wanted to hear. Unfortunately though the song that played was something from Vanilla Ice, its sucked...like really bad.

They said the club would consider selling the naming rights to the new stadium. What stadium? I did an extension to my house quicker than these idiots put a spade in the ground.

Gillett added: "If the naming rights are worth one great player a year in transfer spending, we will certainly look at that as a serious option."

And people wonder why Liverpool fans are so angry? Yes, we may complain because we haven’t been taken over by someone wealthy but we wouldn’t mind if the club situation was exactly the same as before, however it is not, the situation is a lot worse than before the Americans.

Although it has been a torrid time for Liverpool fans all over the world during the American occupation, I do believe it is end game for the two most unpopular people on the Kop. If one were to believe what they read, they would have reason to think that there are buyers interested in the club. The fact of the matter is why would anyone buy now when they know they can get the club a lot cheaper when the banks refinance in October.

The best thing now may be for the bank to take over, administration, 9 point deduction and all, with a swift sale to new owners who will invest in the squad and start the building work on a much needed stadium to take this great club catch up with the times of modern day football. However with Liverpool FC, things are not as simple as that. Most likely something will come back to bite us in the backside and say ‘HEY, THINGS CANT GO SMOOTHLY FOR YOU!!’.

On the pitch, things are not going too great either (talk about an understatement hey?). 6 games played, 1 win, 2 losses and three draws makes a grand total of 6 points. The chaos at the top of the club seems to have had a knock on effect. For f**k sakes, I have more points on my licence...j/k I don’t have my licence and only passed my theory today...OLE!

New manager Roy Hodgson has a difficult task ahead of him to rekindle some of the confidence back into this team that two seasons back pushed Manchester United all the way for the title.

Although things are going bad at the moment, all new managers deserve time and patience to impose their system of playing and tactics onto the team. It has to be said that he has not been very well backed in the transfer market and for some reason has had to get rid of Aquilani and Mascherano. Luckily getting rid of Aquilani has meant we have been able to save money due to 99% of medical staff jobs have been cut at the club.

He has not been given any funds; all the money spent has been through sales. Liverpool fans need to be patient and lower their expectations this season because it will be tough until new owners come in, which hopefully happen sooner, rather than later.

My message to Liverpool fans right now is to have a bit of patience, give the manager time and only judge him at the end of the season because we are known for being patient and long may it continue. At a time like this, the team and the manager need all the support they can get.

Times are difficult both on and off the pitch at Anfield but do remember that after hardship there is always ease.

Liverpool fans will hope this is the case in terms of the ownership situation and the team.

Thanks for reading. Please remember you can discuss this on our father site Soccer 24-7, here.

nAz

Welcome to Liverpool 24-7

Oh Hello,

How nice of you to join us on this beautiful day. We are Liverpool 24-7, a place where you will find everything relevant to Liverpool football club and somethings that are a bit irrelevant (but may give you a bit of a giggle). We will have a full spectrum of items regarding Liverpool FC including match reviews, player profiling, and many a walk down memory lane, the good old days when we actually used to win things :-(

With so many topics to talk about, I am sure this site will be live and kicking with articles on the owners, the beginning of a new era with Roy Hodgson as Liverpool's manager and a fan's viewpoint of the latest additions to the club such as Raul Meireles and Paul Konchescky.

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Please bookmark this blog as our posts will be coming in faster than Dirk Kuyt (only joking, we'll be waiting for donkey's years if that were the case). Nice to have you here, please stick around.

YNWA

nAz