What Next For Rafael Benitez?

Hello people. Just wanted to share an article I wrote on the legend himself, Rafa Benitez. Any sort of Feedback / Discussion is welcome. Hoping i've posted this in the correct section, sorry if not.

Thanks.

What Next For Rafael Benitez?

 

Good post but why did you not post this here. There is a blogging feature and you may get more hits. That said I watched a lot of Serie A during Rafa's tenure at Inter. The overall game play was superb but some players Milito especially was guilty for missing chances that he would have burried the previous season. That resulted into many draws therefore Milan taking leadership of the League.

The interplay between Wesley,Cambiaso Coutinho and Eto'o was breathtaking at times.

 

There's an assistant manager's job going at Liverpool

 

I'm definitely going to transfer a few of my posts to the blog section, yeah.

If Inter were at full strength, I think we'd have seen more positives from Rafa's time at Inter. He really was posed with a tough task, even the Inter defense looked a shambles at times. That however, Rafa must take most of the responsibility for.

 

Imagine him as Assistant Manager!

Would be amazing.

King Kenny - Man manager/Motivator
Steve Clarke - ?
Rafa - Tactics
Commolli - Transfer Signings

 

Rafa still managed a better win % in his first months at Inter than Hodgson managed in all his time there, with all the media and Fergie telling us Hodgson's Inter made him a good manager. The fans hated Hodgson but many wanted Rafa to stay.

 

Maybe Rafa could take over from Fergie?

 

Your article is a good defence of his time at Inter - he also got Eto'o scoring again after Mourinho stuck him out wide, something Rafa got slaughtered for doing with Kuyt.

You might also be unaware only one team has ever repeated a treble and they're Egyptian. Fergie and Guardiola both rejuvenated treble-winning sides, which Rafa wasn't allowed to do. I can't imagine he was aware of the lack of willingness to spend at all when he went there but after telling Rafa he couldn't sign anybody Inter let Leonardo sign two players immediately.

I take issue with some of your points - when I think of Robbie Keane I think, "Rafa wanted Barry and Keane or just Barry so how come we ended up with Keane but no Barry? Got an answer for that one? Because of that decision we had to get somebody quick after Alonso left, when there were very few quality players available. We ended up with Aqua, which wouldn't have been as bad a buy as some made out at the time if we'd kept him last summer. And it wasn't Rafa who let him go.

Paul Tomkins wrote a very good article on mid-range transfers, where Rafa had to operate. using his Transfer Purchase Price Index, which was done with the aid of all sorts of fans and experts so doesn't have the Liverpool bias some accuse PT of. He found Rafa's record was akin to Fergie's, better than Mourinho's but worse than Wenger's.

http://tomkinstimes.com/2010/11/mid-range-madness/

"Rafa's Rant" was not a rant and it was a lazy correlation to blame getting 2nd on it. I'd like to see more people question it because I can't for the life of me see how having a dig at Fergie could upset a Liverpool dressing room.

 

Yeah I could never understand that. It wasn't even a rant it was just reading some notes he had made. Bit odd perhaps but I don't see how that could cause a meltdown.

 

I think the whole Barry, Alonso, Aqua, Keane saga was just bad full stop for Rafa in his time here... Personally, (even if a large majority of fans would disagree), I would have loved to have seen Keane's time at Liverpool with Barry in the squad rather than without Barry... Rafa had a plan, he wanted certain players in certain roles to provide the correct balance, the plans were never met- Who knows how things could have turned out...

Yeah, the rant was one of my favorite Rafa moments to be fair. People that regard it as the reason for missing out on the title are just plain ignorant in my eyes. As I said in the blog, it was just a season where two sides got huge point tallies and we were the unlucky ones. Although I feel Macheda ended up winning the title for United.

 

It's a good article.

I really do hope he can get a job soon. I think maybe a job in which he has solid foundations and he can build the club up. He's an excellent manager and I wish him all the best in whatever he decides to do in the future.

 

I've mentioned this over and over again.Rafa did not ''Rant''.That was a media thing thing.Rafa attacked their beloved Alex Ferguson and they blew it up that he ''Ranted''.He didn't.He launched a verbal attack and if he was guilty of anything it was the fact that it was long-winded.Ranting and any sensible person will admit this that ''Ranting'' is spouting pure gibberish/nonsense that makes little or no sense.If anyone ranted in the 2008/2009 season it was....Alex Ferguson.However the media will never admit this as they climb up his arse at every oppurtunity.His ''contempt and beyond the pale'' rant made little or no sense,when Rafa gestured to one of his OWN players was a ''Rant''.It was gibberish.
I do find fault in what Rafa did however in that if he had to been cleverer,he would have launched a short and painful put-down similar to the one Kenny Dalglish launched in 1988.Telling someone that a 6 week old baby talks more sense than they do is painful.It shuts their mouth shut and firmly shut.
Rafa was a little bit cleverer when Wayne Rooney shot his mouth off.He didn't reply.He stuck Rooneys comments up on the Liverpool dressing room wall,and Liverpool shut Rooneys mouth shut firmly shut.Liverpool beat Man United to a pulp and gave them the biggest beating at the theatre of debt since QPR destroyed them in 1992.However Ferguson followed up his delusion after 3 bottles of toilet duck by declaring ''the better team lost''.This was after he hid from the sky reporters in the bog.
Like the above poster said.Rafa is a terrific bloke and gave me the greatest night of my life as a Liverpool fan,and I hold him in the highest regard because of it.

 

Eto'o has been prolific all his career, he wasn't prolific under Mourinho because, as you say, he was stuck out wide, but that was just to balance the team. It worked out for Mourinho in the end because he won the treble, while when Rafa played him higher up the pitch as a winger the left back started arguing about having no cover from the winger ahead of him (Eto'o).

No one was asking him to win the treble though, where they? They were asking him to atleast be in the champions league spots, which wasn't really a HUGE ask considering the great squad he had inherited. He was 7th at Christmas, even if he had inherited the signings Leonardo had, who weren't that spectacular, then he still wouldn't have been top 4 IMO. Saying he would've succeeded with the two signings is like saying Roy Hodgson only failed because he didn't get enough backing in the transfer market.

 

God knows where he will end up, strange he hasnt been snapped up yet. Anyone below the top 2 should be happy with him.

He should not come back here though.

 

He's too good for a midtable side and all the top jobs are taken.

 

I am about to read Epic Swindle and I have seen some exerts from it, and Rafa was the man in his time here it seems. What I mean by that is, he took a lot of that H&G saga and put it on himself, deflected blame, tried to do his best to battle the "ferrari's" and very nearly did! I can't wait to read the book and find out more, I really rated Rafa, I think he was put in a spot where he could not build his machine like at Valencia, but I really believed he wanted to.

 

Rafa Benitez
Rafa Benitez
Ra Ra Ra Ra Rafa Benitez
Ra Ra Ra Ra Rafa Benitez
Xab Alonsooo
Garciaaa
and
Reinaaa
(dancing man emoticon)

 

I'm about to start The Epic Swindle as well. My son bought it for me as part of a birthday prezzie (along with the Ultimate Liverpool FC box set and It's Not Your Leg Son). We'll have to compare notes when we've finished reading

 

Thanks alot, everyone. Will be writing a new Liverpool article shortly.

 

I got Epic Swindle for fathers day and i'm half way through it, it's pretty good so far, if a little slow. If you imagine i'm half way through the book and SOS have just started their marches... on saying that I think they could make a half decent film out of it and therewere things that I didn't know about at the time which has raised an eyebrow (I didn't realise City's owners wanted us... I knew DIC did but I didn't know Shiek Mansour wanted us for himself a la city).

As for Rafa... I'm a bit miffed by his reputation outside of merseyside, I remember when his name was mentioned for the villa job they were all saying "Please God no" & "Anyway but the fat spanish waiter" - I bet they're eating their words now. I think rival fans forget that he took us from a position which isn't too dis-similar to what Villa's is now and took us to 2 european finals, won us an FA cup, a whisper away from the league title and had us finished on average in 3rd position in the league... When was the last time a Villa fan can boast any of those things?

Rafa Benitez is a class manager and i'm sure that if he were to walk in to any club with at least a semi solid financial footing (and no, i'm not talking about an empire built on sand like H&G's finances) he would excede expectation every time