During his time at Liverpool, Rafa Benitez regularly used the press to get his point across, and he was up to his old tricks again yesterday, but this time it was Inter Milan President Massimo Moratti in the firing line.
Very soon after leaving Anfield, Benitez took on the poisoned chalice of Inter Milan, and lasted less than six months in the hotseat before being ignominiously fired. Since then, Inter have burned through 2 further managers and are now on their 4th since Jose Mourinho left.
Inter are currently one point above the drop zone in league, and Benitez believes that the problem is obvious:
"He [Moratti] makes a lot of mistakes. Since me he's had three more coaches [Leonardo, Gasperini and Ranieri], which means the president makes a lot of mistakes, maybe too many.
This is a far cry from the praise Benitez heaped upon Moratti just under a year ago:
"My relationship with president Massimo Moratti is good, he is a man who knows his soccer".
Despite Moratti's alleged football knowledge, Benitez clearly still feels frustrated about his treatment at Inter Milan:
"Inter didn't behave in the correct way with me, they didn't appreciate my ability as a coach despite winning two titles with me in the Italian Supercup and the Club World Cup. That still sits uncomfortably with me."
Benitez was also frustrated by his treatment at Liverpool, as he stated a couple of months after leaving Anfield:
"The last year at Liverpool I had directors who knew nothing about soccer, and you couldn't talk about soccer with them".
Going all the way back to Tenerife and Valladolid, Benitez has a history of criticizing his former clubs, something that will not endear him to potential future employers. Having said that, in this particular instance, he's probably right about Moratti; it's hard to succeed when you have someone interfering every step of the way.
Then again, a man as studious and analytical as Benitez must have known what Moratti was like; and after enduring Hicks and Gillett (and the other directors who 'knew nothing about soccer'), you'd have thought working with someone like Moratti would be the last thing Benitez wanted at that time...?
Check out Rafa's website: RafaBenitez.com
Jaimie Kanwar
Very soon after leaving Anfield, Benitez took on the poisoned chalice of Inter Milan, and lasted less than six months in the hotseat before being ignominiously fired. Since then, Inter have burned through 2 further managers and are now on their 4th since Jose Mourinho left.
Inter are currently one point above the drop zone in league, and Benitez believes that the problem is obvious:
"He [Moratti] makes a lot of mistakes. Since me he's had three more coaches [Leonardo, Gasperini and Ranieri], which means the president makes a lot of mistakes, maybe too many.
This is a far cry from the praise Benitez heaped upon Moratti just under a year ago:
"My relationship with president Massimo Moratti is good, he is a man who knows his soccer".
Despite Moratti's alleged football knowledge, Benitez clearly still feels frustrated about his treatment at Inter Milan:
"Inter didn't behave in the correct way with me, they didn't appreciate my ability as a coach despite winning two titles with me in the Italian Supercup and the Club World Cup. That still sits uncomfortably with me."
Benitez was also frustrated by his treatment at Liverpool, as he stated a couple of months after leaving Anfield:
"The last year at Liverpool I had directors who knew nothing about soccer, and you couldn't talk about soccer with them".
Going all the way back to Tenerife and Valladolid, Benitez has a history of criticizing his former clubs, something that will not endear him to potential future employers. Having said that, in this particular instance, he's probably right about Moratti; it's hard to succeed when you have someone interfering every step of the way.
Then again, a man as studious and analytical as Benitez must have known what Moratti was like; and after enduring Hicks and Gillett (and the other directors who 'knew nothing about soccer'), you'd have thought working with someone like Moratti would be the last thing Benitez wanted at that time...?
Check out Rafa's website: RafaBenitez.com
Jaimie Kanwar
IIf Rafa had been given money the way kenny has i think we would have had more success ..still a legend and always will be
ReplyDeleteI still think Jaimie owes me £500 from a bet that he said MON would be our next manager after Rafa was forced out by Purselow............. still waiting!!!
ReplyDeleteHow old are you mate.? 12 ? Use your brains and think for yourself ?. stop pushing the line that the uk press has put out there.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe that fans so called are still trying to jusify the Benitas era The only thing he achieved was dividing the supporters.
ReplyDeleteDuring his reign we had endure the most unattractive. boring football ever seen at Anfield.
definitely! we should get the likes of phil degen and nabil el zhar back on the books. Or why not buy crouchy back for around 15 million ( we all know how much rafa used to love buying players for such an over paid price glen johnson 18 million? really?) and when we eventually buy him back lets put him on the wing again just like every other striker rafa seemed to buy. people always claimed we never had a good back up to torres but what stupid idiots don't realise we had plenty of options in the stiker department. we had players like babel kuyt robbie keane and crouch yet for some reason he always played them as a lw! the thing that amazes me the most is that we bought robbie keane for 20 mil (regardless of who actually bought him) and towards the end of his liverpool career was starting to do really well
ReplyDeletescoring an amazing equalising goal against arsenal followed up by a double against bolton yet wat does rafa do after he was finally finding his confidence? leaves him out of the 5th round fa cup match against everton then sells him back to tottenham for 6 million less than we paid for him! wat on earth was the point! how you and other people can still claim that it was all the owners fault and rafa did NOTHING wrong is just stupid and it makes people sound like nonsensical douchebags if you don't believe me just ask the likes of yossi, babel and of course xabi alonso. the short and skinny of it is rafa is gone the king has his throne back and he will march us back into the top 4 and i have no doubt within the next 3 years we will have our 19th premier league title. YNWA!
It's Benitez...not Benitas, and you quite obviously forgot about Houllier.
ReplyDeletebenitez was a good manager for liverpool, however he did spit his dummy out in the media. he was replaced at the right time and at the moment things are looking good. to be fair to benitez, his impact on liverpool may come in the next few years as it was his influence that has ensured liverpool are bringing through the youth instead of making massive signings. the man is not stupid and yes he did get things wrong, however he had faith in lucas and did give us some of the best nights ever in europe. I bet some people would give their right arm to feel the way we did in that first season in the chapions league!!!
ReplyDeleterafa is king of comeback....still remember we come back with milan, man city and etc...makes me fell good.....
ReplyDeletego n fcuk urself...die hard fan my ass.....alonzo????crouch on bench or whatever, we did finished 2nd......
ReplyDeleteI don't recall much happening when you played Barcelona apart from the fact that you £60M on the bench dooing nothing. Let's dispel the myth of Ferguson apart from a lucky crop of youngsters al the other youngsters you have developed at MU cost £Ms and he won his first title with the most expensive team in the league way beyond in real terms what Chelsea spent. You are in so much debt that when you fall you will never recover.
ReplyDeleteJust brilliant.
ReplyDeleteoh so the year before inter won the treble kept all their best players and as soon as "the messiah" comes in he fails miserably and almost ruined them as a club. get your head out of your ass rafa. i keep hearing he challenged SAF and Roman.. HE GOT US TO 2ND PLACE IN THE PREMIER LEAUGE ONCE! and thats not even an achievment! you're an absolute disgrace to the LFC (Lfc stands for Liverpool Football Club you probably didn't know that) like I said in my previous post which you no surpirsingly chose to ignore rafa would of kept his job had not turned every striker into a winger had he not wanted to replace xabi alonso with gareth barry and tell yossi benayoun you;re not even good enough to be on the bench at liverpool, had not sold robbie keane SIX MONTHS after buying him. You DON'T who do you think got us in this mess? a few years ago we were talking about winning the premier league now all we can hope for is beating TOTTENHAM (a team that came 10th in 08) for the 4th spot. IT WAS RAFA who got us in this stupid mess not h+g not rick parry RAFA! he almost ruined our club just like he almost ruined inter no wonder he is out of a job now.
ReplyDeleteBULLSHIT! sell to buy look at jamies previous articles http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2010/11/debunking-liverpool-fc-myths-no-9-rafa.html like i said in every single post get your head out of your ass and just realise 2nd place isnt a good thing!
ReplyDeleteI think there are valid arguments on both sides of the fence.
ReplyDeleteYes, Rafa was good for the club. First and foremost, he helped mastermind number 5, and for that he will always be a legend. With Rafa at the helm, we sat at football's top table for a good few years, and had some truly world class players at the club. He well and truly helped put LFC back on the map at a time when football was gaining global momentum, and we were in danger of being left behind. And YES, he did the best he could under TRULY testing times, especially with H&G in charge.
That said, you cannot ignore the mistakes. You cannot ignore them. We can talk about the good players vs bad players all day, but where do you draw the line on the bad ones he bought. It can be argued that it was down to budgets. Maybe. But that DOES NOT excuse the extent of how many of those players he was bringing in, over and over again. As mentioned above, we spent 30million in 2009 on Aquilani and Johnson - so it's not even like we are talking about JUST the bottom end players. Robbie Keane was 20m. Babel was 12m.
The 'fact' is that Rafa is a GREAT coach, and how he is depicted in the English media is despicable. (I get that the Fleet Street mob do not really get football and a lot of it is a men's drinking club, in which, or some reason, Ferguson is god!). And yes, again, he had some very difficult circumstances and awful bosses. And, I have to stress, I will love him because I get to wave 5 fingers in the air. We have also won as many European Cups as the rest of England combined.
But he is not, by any means, a great manager, in the traditional English sense of management. He cannot buy players and he cannot treat players as people. He can coach players in to playing great games and becoming overall better players, but really, the coaching team does that in England. In fact, they say Ferguson has been very hands-off over the last few years.
On the continent, a 'football director' buys that, and Rafa is more suited to that - but having tasted life as a 'manager' at a top club in England, that is Rafa's preferred way of working. Unfortunately, that doesn't suit him. Just because a rally driver samples life as an F1 driver, and loves is, it doesn't mean F1 suits him.
I want the best for Rafa, and I hope that he gets the perfect club where he can showcase his amazing coaching ability. But I do not want him back at Anfield, I think we have moved on - even great things (and I wouldn't classify Rafa's reign as great, although it was at times) come to an end.
Which brings me on to a final thought - I also think Rafa suits a smaller fish. Like Valencia were - always looking up to Barca and Real. Rafa's whole demeanor suits the underdog. Which again, I respect - but I just don't want that at Anfield anymore.
Long live the King!!!
There are some very ill informed people on here. Rafa is a top, top coach and possibly the best tactician in the world. Hope the next club he goes to gives him the respect he deserves.
ReplyDeleteAgree, beating Real Madrid 4-0 at home was devastatingly dull.
ReplyDeletefans like adam and californian robert are examples of the sheep listening to the tabloids, i mean the shite you spout could of been muttered by SAF himself.
ReplyDeleteTruely embarressed to be associated with the likes of your through the club i support, thank god the majority disagree with you.
It is because we needed to get rid of all the cancers that got us into the trouble that we were in.
ReplyDeleteNo Rafa, Hicks and Gillett meant that we could start over again.
Does that answer your question?
who has matched Rafa's achievements in challenging either in europe (rated #1) or against SAF and Chelski since Abramovich came in?
ReplyDelete'nuff said.
there's only one person with his head up his ass here and it's you - it stinks from a 100 miles away.
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't know what a liverpool fan is if you tripped over one.
go and pollute some other blog.
I'm amazed you can see anything for the fog in your head.
ReplyDeleteIt just seemed like a total waste of a large payoff just prior to the ownership change.
ReplyDeletethe option was always there for new owners to layoff Rafa, but putting a new manager in just before the sale didn't change that potential decision. The risk of 2 payoffs was clear say if the new owners wanted their own man in.
Add to that, when Hodgson came in, I thought the club was going for stability not success.
I remember thinking he's not a guy you bring in to then go and buy £20m players, certainly not until he's shown he can organise a squad. Most (non - lfc) fans agreed with me at the time. So it was never going to be a surprise if the owners didn't stick with him.
I just have to wonder if Purslow wasn't just trying to be popular with the media/football fraternity/senior squad members, that bend over backwards to be nice about Hodgson. I am just not a Purslow fan.
"Maxi,Lucas,Voronin,Ngog,Kyriarkos,yet the five players mentioned cost £6.5m."
ReplyDeleteYes, some anti Rafa types don't realise he had to build an entire squad, no youth coming through and so he scrambled around in the free/nearly free bucket aswell as the circa £5-8m price tag. Many were as 3rd or 4th choice squad members and did ok in their own leagues, but some made it as 1st 15.
Babel, Voronin, Kuyt were big scorers outside the EPL. If just one had come good I think the title would have been ours, though clearly that debate is much bigger than my one sentence!!
People really slam him for some txfers that didn't work out, and often his tactical deployment, almost refusing to acknowledge his achievements - particularly relative to other managers.
That's another good debate but I'm not going to waste my breath with some of the posters on this site.
quite possibly, and last season was impressive from January.
ReplyDeleteAnd as I read somewhere, we're winning ugly at the moment which should be a good sign, if it comes together.
Have to say though I can see Hendo's potential, I am a little concerned about Adam regarding his positional sense and tackling inability - seems to lack everything that Lucas has blossomed into.
Our midfield looks vulnerable right now (Spurs just ran rings around us, but all teams have had a good go,) and I can't help thinking he's not able to own the midfield - demonstrating all the limitations he demonstrated so clearly at Blackpool. My concern is because it's such a key position - he's essentially the go to guy if Gerrard is not available/retires.
Look mate Rafa had to go and this is why it made sense to get rid of him when we did.
ReplyDeleteIf Rafa stayed and FSG came in and decided (which they probably would have) to get rid of Rafa then they would have been facing the music from Rafa's preachers which would have seen more turmoil for the club. The last thing that was needed was for NESV at the time to also have an american flag burning with their heads on it. Roy was never going to be the long term solution but here we are today with new owners, new manager, new coaching staff, new vision and we have now started over. The board at the time made the most absolute correct decision to ask Rafa to leave after six years. Rafa had his time and after 4 seasons of no silverware and ending 7th in his last season the writing was on the wall. By the looks of things Rafa and FSG would not have seen eye to eye. Rafa wants full control and with Comolli around it would have been a case of Rafa and Comolli falling out. Comolli is the director of football and that would not have gone down well with Rafa as he wants all the power...
We have moved forward, financially we are proper, at the helm we have a great manager and the best thing of all is that all the rubbish has been cleared which has paved the way to many years of success going forward.
the funny thing is you completely disregarded/didn't acknowledge any of my comments and all you can say is "i have fog in my head" because you know you are wrong. next time you reply have a proper rebuttal. once again you're a disgrace if you think 2nd place is an achievement.
ReplyDeleteLol, what absolute nonsense. And if you are going to insult someone that isn't English "(Lfc stands for Liverpool Football Club you probably didn't know that)", make sure you get your own English down pat. The word is LEAGUE, not LEAUGE. Again, the word is spelt SURPRISINGLY, not SURPIRSINGLY. As to actual football, what you say makes no sense at all. You refer to Tottenham a team that came 10th in 08. What does that have to do with anything? They are also a team who made the quarter-final in the Champion's League last season. That same year you mention when Tottenham came in at 10th, Man City came in at 9th, followed the next year, the 08/09 season by 10th. Club's fortunes change, it's a way of life. You also say that all we can hope for is beating Tottenham for the 4th spot, but what about Arsenal? We are also hoping to beat them to the 4th spot. You talk about Rafa having his head up his ass, whether you agree or not, Rafa was and still is a very good manager. He turned Valencia into a super-power, he then came to Liverpool and a couple of signings, took us to our 5th Champion's League title. The following year, he took us to the FA Cup title and the year after that, took us to another Champion's League final. Sure Rafa made some atrocious signings, every manager has. SAF signed Juan Sebastian Veron, who was terrible, but not half as bad as Eric Djembe-Djembe or Massimo Taibi. Rafa also made some monumental signings, Reina, Alonso, Mascherano, Torres, Lucas, Kuyt, just to name a few. Rafa was instrumental in overhauling the youth set-up at Liverpool, bringing in Jose Segura to run the academy. This is the same Jose Segura who has overseen the development of countless high profile players from the Barcelona academy, Messi, Iniesta, Fabregas, just to name a few. He was also instrumental in bringing Dalglish back to LFC in an ambassador role, after Dalglish spent years in the wilderness. Had Rafa been given the backing financially from H+G and Parry, he would have brought in some more monumental signings. He missed out on both Cristiano Ronaldo and Dani Alves by 2-3 million. He also tried to sign Berbatov and very nearly signed him. When the money was made available to him, he made some excellent signings. You also mention turning every striker into a winger, but if you had done your homework, both Kuyt and Babel started their careers as wingers. Another point I'd like to mention is about Xabi Alonso and Rafa wanting to replace him with Gareth Barry. What you like to forget is that the summer when Rafa wanted to sell him, Xabi had had come off 2 pretty dismal seasons, it was only that season when the deal didn't go through is when he had his best season with us. Rafa made some bad decisions as a manager, as all managers do, but he also got it right on so many occasions. That season that I mentioned as Xabi's best for us was the same season we came 2nd in the league and although we finished 2nd, we were by far and away the best side that season, scored the most goals not just in the league, but in the country and were in the top 3 goalscorers in Europe. Had we have turned 2 of those 11 draws into wins, we would have walked away with the title as we had finished 4 points behind Man Utd. So, in short, it wasn't Rafa who got us into this mess, it was Rafa who set us up for the future by buying quality players who are still at the club today, and by setting up the new era of the academy and bringing in some exciting young talent into Melwood.
ReplyDeleteI can't give eyesight to the blind.
ReplyDeleteBenitez 'DID NOT ASK FOR ROBBIE KEANE',he did'n't want him.D--k head Purslow brought RK to the club !
ReplyDeleteGo vomit then! because like it or not, 'comebackrafa' is correct! and you may notice the ammount suport he has with people who lke his comments ! Have a look at how many agree with you ! Look further and you will see that Rafa supporters who write here get a lot of support.Anti Rafa get very little support ! 'ENOUGH SAID'
ReplyDeleteBecause the idiot Purslow was undermining Benitez By signing players like Robbie Keane etc; He ignored Bennitez's requests and signed the wrong players,'JUST AS PARRY DID BEFORE HIM. 'FACT'. Idiots who nothing about the game !
ReplyDeleteKK will not have the success that Benitez had,(as you will see in the future.),he is not a tactician in the mould of Rafa !
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely correct.KK was carried for his first three years in charge,by Bob Paisley,who he requested to come in with him.Paisley was in the managers office for those three years,guiding KK ! One could actually say tha Paisley had 12 years of success rather than 9yrs!
ReplyDeleteRay Harford was the man behind him at Blackburn!
He had little success at Newcastle, and failed completely at Celtic.
Benitez is at least on a par with 'SHANKLY' (NOTICE HOW THE NAME IS SPEALT?) As I have mentioned earlier ; notice the number of supporters you have to your comments,against the Rafa supporters comments. YOU WILL NOTICE THAT YOU ARE IN A MINORITY ! (check the rest of your spelling also?).
ReplyDeleteThis debate in very informative in the way it reveals the how 'VAST MAJORITY' of LFC fans are BENITEZ suporters!
ReplyDeleteI've been to California a few times,and guess what ? there are more druggies there than in the rest of the world! Don't forget to check the dictionary for your spelling ?
ReplyDeleteAorry but you are wrong!
ReplyDeleteSorry as well!
ReplyDeleteThe divide you speak of is at least 80% pro RAFA BENITEZ ! For every 1 fan that do not like RAFA,there are 4 fans that do like him! And I feel sure that the 80% would have him back tomorrow !
ReplyDeletehow do you know? You ve worked under Rafa before? or you have heard them from the press?
ReplyDeleteI think he meant beating the mancs at old toilet is dull (with a goal from Dossena)
ReplyDeleteYou mean like what Roy did?
ReplyDeleteRafa defended the fans and the club from the hideous UK press... in front of those hungry wolves who preyed on his every mistakes and conveniently avoided all his successes.
Roy blamed the fans...
i rest my argument.
@dfe55ab5ab5703438330f3581bb46e92 You have no right to even mention football let alone Liverpool Football Club. You are just an American. In that country they actually call it Soccer *cringe*. You have no right to mention Rafa, King Kenny nor any of our players. Go back home and play your "soccer" mate, because you don't know anything about Football.
ReplyDelete