Rafa's been out of a job a while now. Seems to be overlooked for everything he's interested in; he's a proven coach, builds for the future (we will benefit from his foresight in the coming couple of years) and a CL winner - there aren't too many of them out of work! Sure, he had an mare in Milan but was following in the footsteps of arguably the best in the world who had just won just about everything with them! Just wonder what others see that they don't like?
A lot of them aren't as blind to his mistakes as we are. We will always have a soft spot for his cup wins but it was in plain sight for all to see that he went on a huge downhill slide since 2007. It's a common belief that he required large amounts of money to do anything (speaking to some of my Italian supporter friends) and that he wasted most of it on crap. You and I can discuss his positive traits and negative traits all day, but other clubs are not willing to do that. He's a long term gamble which puts him in low demand. People either want long term certainty or short term risk (like AVB). To get the best out of Benitez you'd have to give him time, and then who knows where you'd end up?
2005: Champions' League title. 2006: Fa Cup title. 2007: Champions League final. 2007: H&G buy club. Draw a ****ing graph, Kermit! It's a common belief that treble-winning sides never perform, suffer from complacency, have peaked and require rejuvenation. Ferguson and Guardiola bought after a treble. Mourinho left because that team was shot and getting too old. Rafa wasn't given any money to buy. Leonardo was given the money for two players as soon as he took over from Rafa. His most expensive buy here was Torres at £22m. Sold for £50m. He didn't buy any of your posts so he avoided a lot of crap there. I won't go into how his flop/success ratio was akin to Fergie's and better than Mourinho's because you'd never comprehend the logic. But with all that crap he bought and with Gerrard and Torres out injured for large periods we pushed Utd to within four points in 2009 with doubles over them and Chelsea, and scored nine goals more than anybody (oh yeah, Rafa's also too defensive) when Utd had a front line of Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo. I wish he'd bought more crap if they can do that. Rafa's win % was better than Hodgson's at Inter and the media kept telling us being at Inter made Roy quality. But we don't buy into media cliches here, do we? DO WE? I dunno about your Italian boyfriend but I remember Inter fans saying they preferred Rafa's attacking football to Mourinho's dour defensiveness. However, I understand Tom Hicks is interested in getting you into his legal team to prove just how much money he crammed into the club's coffers. No, we couldn't because you don't have a clue and spout media cliches, which I can get from the Independent, thanks very much. In a Champion's League final in his first season, that's where we ended up. And if you say anything about it being Houllier's squad I will come down there and slap you with your mother's wrinkly tit.
So what happened after that mate? Did H&G take over the management of the club? Did they come out and yell at the lads themselves? He was still our manager and after that we didn't get a trophy. That's whats stopping him from getting a job. Doesn't mean he's a **** manager, it just means that he didn't win anything for 3 years. Draw a graph from that. Agreed. I never said he was given any money, in fact I was surprised he wasn't. There were 2 aspects to that. Firstly Inter didn't have boatloads of money (though they weren't skint - they just won the CL) but more importantly the Inter board never trusted Rafa with that money. His fault? Probably not. He made some good buys, some crap buys, but I would have given him money. However, they ****ing didn't they? So let's judge what he did with Inter without money then (he didn't need to overhaul the team, it was the best ****ing team in Europe). Common belief? How many treble winning teams do you know that did that? 2? That's a trend then, is it? They had youth coming through naturally, he took them and forced them into the first team (Biabiany and Coutinho) and as such they underperformed. They were set up defensively, Rafa decided that without money for some reason he should change it. What? What logic are you talking about? Ask any rival fan what they remember him by. FLOPS. That was my entire sentence - what others think. You took that and went on a rant about my posts. We remember the good buys, oh yes. You and I can be bothered to bring up every one of the 80ish signings he made, but others can't. I'm happy to sit here and say how he didn't fail all the time at signing players, how he had a great eye for value often. But ask any other team what they want to discuss, they'll laugh at buying Aquilani. They'll laugh at buying Keane, selling Keane, Morientes, etc. You and I know those are offset by the Mascherano's, Alonso's and Torres type signings, but when you show a list of 80 players, of which 20 were great and the rest were, mediocre at best, the board members don't have the patience to hire him. Calm down there mate, I never mentioned Hodgson, never rated him anyway. No one was comparing him to a former manager in the 90s, they were comparing him to Mourinho... Benitez played 25 games, won 12, drew 6, lost 7. Winning percentage - 48%. Mourinho? 62%. That's the reason why they fired him, forget your nonsense about Hodgson. Rafa should have been given more time at Inter, I agree. But if he continued in this vein, they would have been run to the ground. (Remember, he lost the Super-Cup about a month after winning the CL). They were doing poorly in the CL. Not first in the league if I recall correctly. For them that was unacceptable. Why get personal? Ad hominem attacks are the sign of a weak argument. I was simply explaining why other teams don't give him as much patience as we do. You seem to have some strange affixiation with Benitez, reminiscent of a separation anxiety. No need to attack me personally. I was referring to a group of Roma/Sampdoria fans that I keep in touch with, who were linked with him earlier. They were telling me what they didn't like about him and why they didn't want him. I didn't agree with some of it either. As for the attacking football comment - you know what Inter fans preferred most of all? Winning. They weren't doing enough of it under Benitez. What cliches was I spouting? I never stated any of this as my opinion other than that he had some mistakes (which he certainly did). I know he had a lot of positives but to imply that anyone who is not a Rafa fanboy is simply spouting cliches and media brainwashed is a bit... deluded. Alright. So Inter gambled on him to do what he did in his first season here. Well he didn't ****ing do that did he? He didn't win the CL did he? He inherited 100 percent of Mourinho's squad and didn't make it to a final. Who cares what he did with us? If he's not doing it for anyone else he's going to get fired. Simple. I liked the stability he brought us. No one else saw that. Everyone else saw what he didn't do with Inter. That's why he's not getting hired. End of. It's not right, he's a good manager. But the OP asked why he hasn't found a job yet, well those are the reasons why. Maybe they aren't correct assumptions but he isn't remembered by other teams as a Mourinho, or a Shankly or a Paisley.
Benitez has his flaws it is true - despite how long and personal a comment you make! He is a damn good manager though and many a club are missing out.
guys... neither loyalty nor over criticism can cloud two things 1. he delivered success at LFC. 2. he developed a super ego that led him to insult and antagonise owners... moratti at inter is a guy that anyone in football knows is completely mad and if you sing up to him you must work with him.. benitez went out of his way to antagonise the guy in the press and the inevitale happened.. Bascially any owner needs to weigh point on to point 2 and then see if 6mil wages per yeat is a small risk for potential gains.
The thing is, he had been at Liverpool a while and managed to win the CL getting the fans on his side before making comments about the owners, this made his position very strong and so he was able to make these comments without risk of being booted purely for that. At Inter, he hadn't one that which made easy for Moratti to tell him to 'off'.
Lot's of opinions on Rafa, so will share mine! Damn good coach imo - not so much a damn good 'manager'.......sometimes used to drive me nuts with his team selections and a 'coldness' towards players but wish he'd been backed when we were on the up - I can remember the names that we were linked to before they became massive and let's not forget his legacy still lives on in the first team and reserves.....and let's be honest, last year aside, we all bloody miss the results he brought us. LFC is in his blood, it must of really hurt him to be overlooked for the job this time - hindsight shows us he would of been the least risky in terms of delivering a top four finish. I don't know if he developed a super ego or if he was just lacking emotional intelligence.....a statistician that worked in logic only - I suspect it was the latter. If it was his ego, I'd hope he'll eat some humble pie soon.......His actions after he left made me realise how much LFC meant to him......The game needs Rafa, Rafa needs the game.
