Goodfella

Craig Bellamy lifts the lid on life under Benitez and Dalglish

Read exclusive extracts from striker's autobiography GoodFella


When I walked into Melwood, the Liverpool training ground, I felt as though everything in my career had been leading to this moment. It was the first time I had ever been there and it was like being in a dream.

This was where Bill Shankly had worked. This was the turf that Bob Paisley had walked on. This was where Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler had trained. The facilities might have been new and state-of-the-art but the place reeked of glorious history.

A lot of things went through my mind. It was only a year ago that my name was mud and everybody had been branding me a troublemaker and saying I was untouchable.

I had undergone four operations on my patella tendons and two on my cruciates. I had suffered from episodes of depression.

I even thought of sitting in my garage in Norwich on Christmas Eve, doing my leg presses. This is why I did it. To get here. To get to Melwood. To sign for Liverpool.

I did my medical stuff and then I went upstairs to see Rafa Benitez in his office. I sat down. He was business-like.

He produced a cutting from a newspaper. The page was dominated by a picture of me with a snarl on my face. Most of the time back then I’d have a snarl on my face. It was nothing unusual.

“Why are you looking like this?” he said. I told him I couldn’t remember.

“You can’t play like this,” he said. “This kind of aggression is not what you need as a player.”

I told him I understood. The memory of the game where the incident had happened started to come back to me. It was a match against Sunderland the previous season. Sunderland’s goalkeeper, Kelvin Davis, had shoved me in the back. I had a bad back anyway at that time. I didn’t take too kindly to being shoved in it.

I didn’t mention any of that to Rafa. I could sense it probably wasn’t the right time.

Then he got a board out and started quizzing me about footballing systems. What did I think about this formation or that formation, the positives, the negatives, the benefits of playing between the lines.

Where would I run if a teammate had the ball in a certain position. He asked me about every scenario under the sun. And every answer I gave, even if it was correct, was twisted into another answer.

“When you play up top,” he said, “if this player has it, where would you go?” It was like a multiple choice test. “I’d run to the left,” I said. “Yeah, but run right first, then go left,” he said. The other players told me later that was just typical Rafa.

I was a bit taken aback by his attitude. It was like being in the presence of an unsmiling headmaster. The atmosphere at the club seemed strange, too. It was a place of business and a place of work. There weren’t very many people smiling. There wasn’t a lot of laughter around the place. Even the physios were on edge when they were doing the medical. Everyone seemed uncomfortable and wary.

The next day, I met Pako Ayestaran, Rafa’s assistant and the fitness coach. The fitness routines were not that imaginative.

It was army style, really. Long, plodding runs mainly. It was very professional with heart monitors and fitness belts but there was no camaraderie while they took place. It was all double sessions, tactical work, standing in position, walk-throughs of tactical play. Rafa oversaw it all.

A lot of Rafa’s tactical work was very, very good. He was impressively astute and I learned a lot from him in that area. But he could not come to terms with the idea that some players need an element of freedom and that we express ourselves on the pitch in different ways. He was very rigid.

He worked on specific moves over and over again. It was a bit like American Football in that respect.

Rafa wanted people running designated routes when the ball was in a certain place, just as he had been explaining the first time I spoke to him in his office. The winger comes inside, the full-back overlaps, the forward has to run near post every time.

There was no allowance for the fact that your marker might have worked out what you are doing after a few attempts. You had to keep doing it because it might make space for someone else. I felt like a decoy runner half the time.

But I did learn a lot. Defensively, Rafa was exceptional. He was very good on the opposition and how to nullify their threat and stifle their forward players.

He would use video analysis to go through the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses. Our preparation for games was extremely thorough. Nothing was left to chance. He was the first foreign manager I worked under and I learned quite a bit.

But there was no scope for spontaneity. None. He distrusted that. Of all the managers I have worked with, he trusted his players the least. That’s just how he was. There was not much enjoyment. There were no small-sided games or anything like that.

Everything was tactical with timed drills and routines.

It was a bit like Groundhog Day. You came in and did the same stuff over and over again.

Sometimes strikers like to do finishing at the end of a session but once the whistle was blown at the end of training, Rafa would personally collect the balls and put them in the bag and no one was allowed to do any extra work. He was a total control-freak.

Rotation was something else I had to get used to under Rafa.

One week you would play, the next you wouldn’t. None of the players would ever know until an hour before kick-off who was going to start. I found that hard to adjust to. I found everything about it difficult.

I prepared as if I was going to start because I felt that was the professional thing to do. But I need to get myself into a certain frame of mind when I play. I cut myself off from everybody around me on the day of the game. I get intense about it. In those circumstances, it is very difficult if you are then told an hour before the match that you’re on the bench.

By preparing as though I was going to play, I was also ensuring that the disappointment would be even greater when I didn’t play. So then I started telling myself I had to change tack. I stopped building myself up too much so that it would be easier to deal with the disappointment of not being selected.

But then when I did start, it almost came as a shock to me. I had an hour to get prepared. That was it.

Rafa said he would not release the starting eleven until an hour before kick-off because he didn’t want to give the opposition an advantage. What he meant was that he didn’t want anyone to leak the team early and he didn’t trust players to keep it secret.

He didn’t trust the players on the pitch so he certainly wasn’t going to trust them off it.

Bellamy on Dalglish

People talk about Kenny Dalglish being the greatest Liverpool footballer of all time. He probably is. But you know what, he is the greatest man who has ever played for Liverpool Football Club.

There is no shadow of a doubt about that. To be involved with him was just a huge honour. He was brilliant to play for.

He had such a calming influence over everyone at the club. He was just The King. He was a true man. The humility he shows constantly on a daily basis to everyone was overwhelming. When I say ‘everyone’, I don’t just mean the players. I mean all the employees of the club.

The impression you get of him on the television, defensive and monosyllabic, is the exact opposite of what he is like when the camera is turned off.

Before the Carling Cup final, the manager showed us a short film that illustrated what Wembley meant to Liverpool and what it meant to the club being back there.

I sat there watching Shankly talking and Kenny scoring that magnificent winner against Bruges in the 1978 European Cup final.

And I thought about all my years of growing up and wanting to be part of this club. When the film ended, there were tears in my eyes.

For someone like me, you don’t get much better than playing for Liverpool under Kenny Dalglish.

When Kenny was fired a few months after bringing Liverpool their first trophy for six years, I knew for sure it was time to go.


http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/craig-bellamy-lifts-lid-life-4041459

 

Nothing new on Rafa but still pretty damning. I think every player has said the same thing bout Kenny. If you could put Kenny's man mnagment with Rafa tactics you would have some manager!

 

Great read - just shows why we were so good defensively under Rafa. I agree with his managerial stance, it's not Sunday football where you are there to have fun first then win second.

Edit: I am not saying that is how King Kenny see's it by the way - just that I like the disciplined approach RAFA FOR ENGLAND

 

Agree on the second part but you also have to realize what players you have at your disposal and who might need some freedom. Maybe it was just bellamy who got a lot of the methodical stuff? I always felt Gerrard had a fairly free-ish role to play behind Torres?

Will need to read more of the book but would like to hear how the current Chelsea regime felt on Rafa, if he changed anything at all or kept the same way.

In regards to the patterns of play, barca, valencia "the machine", us at times, could move the ball about so efficiently because everyone knew where everyone was meant to be. Add some top class players and defenders still wouldn't be able to figure you out.

 

I like system based football, getting basics right and everyone knowing their job works. It's a great way to teach kids imo. The moments of inspiration and skill still happen, players who are good know when that opportunity presents itself but those moments are built within a system and that can even inspire creative and skillfull players as they have the security knowing that if they get it wrong there is someone to mop up.

 

'The Gerrard Role' as it quickly became known - Rafa broke his own rules on this one is seems.

P.S - The Gerrard Role would be a good forum name

 

System helps put the palyers in those positions for moments of brilliance.

Certain roles are more free than others too.

 

Could rename a thread that, not sure which one.

 

Joe Pesci being lined up to play Rafa in the film adaptation as I type.

 

When I was coaching I played with 1 up front with an attacking midfielder, that midfielder was the only player allowed to roam.

 

Dangerous with that one player isolated , basically can't play long ball all the time!

 

It was more of a 4-3-3 the way I played it there was always 2 in attack plus the AM.

So 2 midfielders 1 roaming 2 wingers tucked in when defending therefore defending we had 4 tucked in no way through fullbacks left to do their job.

Once the ball was won both wingers had to hit chalk, as soon as play developed left the right winger made a diagonal and joined the striker same fullback overlapped. That was the basics of it.

 

V.good read, can't wait to read the full book.

 

Good film too...

 

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There is an extract on Souness and how Souness wanted to fight him lol - brilliant. Will definitely be buying this book!

Also, I find that only British players seemed to have a problem with Rafa's method. I don't recall Reina, Agger, Mascherano, Torres or even Alonso have a problem with his training methods. Linking this to another article regarding English youth, perhaps this is the problem - players are expected to have fun with their manager and just run around at 200 mph like headless chickens, and are not prepared to put the graft into the more 'boring' areas like tactics and discipline? ...

 

Below he describes his first game after the death of Gary Speed.

 

Realise FFS

 

all i'd say is that rafa sutff put us in a position where there were pots on the sideboard and 4th was a sure thing.... if bellamy didn't get that tough.... he was a **** then and probably still is really. anyway.... it was rafa's own failings not his postive attribute that did him in. if he'd not bought badly and alienated players he would still be there regimented blah blah and all.

 

"They were still the top team when I was growing up in the 1980s but that wasn't the only reason I supported them. I loved the kit for one thing, that brilliant crispy, shiny red kit that always looked so beautiful against the green of the turf with its big Liver Bird emblem. The first kit I owned was the yellow away kit they wore for the 1985-86 season."
On supporting LFC

"Gerrard was everything I expected and more. He was a cut above anyone I've ever played with. He had so much in his locker. He is an immense player but because he is streaks ahead of everyone - even someone like Alonso - he put too much onus on himself to do everything. There were days we knew that if we were going to win, Stevie was going to have to be at his best. He knew that too, and that is a lot of pressure to carry around on your shoulders. What makes him so good? Well, there is nothing he can't do. He is clever. He sees the game quicker than anyone else. He sees the picture. He can play the ball first time around corners that aren't even there. He has got intelligence. He has got physical attributes. He can bomb past people. He is quick. He is a powerful, proper athlete. Give him a header, he will score."
On Steven Gerrard

"Crouchie said to me that if he played, he would do a golf swing celebration. I said the same. In the elation of the moment, I forgot all about the celebration for about 20 seconds. Some people were upset...they said it showed a lack of contrition. That wasn't true. It was just an expression of happiness, mixed with a little mischief and a signal that there was more to me than bouts of bad behaviour. It was a proud moment looking up at the Nou Camp scoreboard and seeing my name on it. I knew my son would be looking at it, too."
On celebrating a goal v Barcelona

"His finishing was still a different league. He could dink it over the keeper, he could move the ball, he could whip it. And he was a lovely bloke too."
On playing with Robbie Fowler

"Rafa liked to nominate a penalty-taker for each game and it was Robbie that night. But when we were awarded one, I decided that I wanted to take it. Robbie and I had a brief argument but he couldn't be bothered to continue it. He stepped aside. I took it. The Birmingham keeper, Maik Taylor, saved it. The next day Rafa called me in. He asked me why I took the penalty. I said I felt confident and I wanted to score. 'But you weren't on penalties,' he said. 'I have to fine you.' 'Really,' I said. 'Yes,' Rafa said. 'I pick the penalty taker, not you.' I don't know how much the fine was. I didn't dare think about it because it would have driven me mad."
On being fined

"It was heart-wrenching not to play any part at all. When we were on the coach back to the hotel, a couple of the boys expressed surprise to me that Rafa hadn't brought me in. It was nice of them but it didn't help. It was over. The chance had gone. As a fan of the club, I felt sick about the defeat. As a player denied the chance to play the biggest game in club football I just felt empty."
On not playing in Athens

"Liverpool took the initiative. They sent a helicopter to Cardiff to fly me to Merseyside. As soon as we landed in Liverpool, Harry [Redknapp] was on the phone telling me not to sign. I thought Tottenham were probably the better team but Liverpool were in my heart. I had unfinished business at Liverpool, too. It had never really felt right playing under Rafa and I wanted to have better memories of playing for the club I loved."
On re-joining LFC

"He was an incredible player and a lovely guy. He trained hard and worked relentlessly during matches. People talk about him diving but he took a hell of a lot of punishment, too. He would take his socks off after a game and his calves and his ankle would be black and blue from where he had been kicked."
On Luis Suarez

"I went with him to the pub. I sat with him and watched as he taunted every Evertonian who came through the door. I could see them glance at him and roll their eyes, smiling. They all knew he wouldn't spare them. He gave them merciless stick. It was a great night."
On post-FA Cup semi-final celebrations with Carra