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Rafael Benitez

Jesse Pinkman

by Jesse Pinkman
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Away Day Gadgie

Away Day Gadgie

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-little-salt-or-a-touch-of-paprika-its-all-about-the-details-for-rafa-benitez-fsb6pz8gr?shareToken=d88968b7a8536cabfbf09e8e54213449

 

Good for football, terrible to watch a film with. Can we not just enjoy it? But he always says that small details make a massive difference.”

 

:lol: :snod: :smitten:

Can somone post the article please?  I can't read it from that link.

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Bimpy474

Bimpy474

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How can anybody read that Caulkin article and not be amazed and grateful for what we have in Rafa.

 

Ashley obviously, and I know it's just a dream, but if only we had an owner who could see what most of us see in Rafa. An owner that doesn't need to go mental and spend like Man City. Just back Rafa with a reasonable budget

 

It's so frustrating to watch the club blow the best thing thats happened to it in ages like they are.

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Bimpy474

Bimpy474

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The clip of those three and ashley claims he wants the best for nufc.  That picture there is absolute proof of his lies.

 

Says a lot about the sack of shite manager who thought they were a good coaching team an all.

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FrenchWilliam

FrenchWilliam

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-little-salt-or-a-touch-of-paprika-its-all-about-the-details-for-rafa-benitez-fsb6pz8gr?shareToken=d88968b7a8536cabfbf09e8e54213449

 

Good for football, terrible to watch a film with. Can we not just enjoy it? But he always says that small details make a massive difference.”

 

:lol: :snod: :smitten:

Can somone post the article please?  I can't read it from that link.

 

‘A little salt, or a touch of paprika – it’s all about the details for Rafa Benítez’

The Newcastle manager’s inner circle tell George Caulkin how his obsessiveness translates off the pitch

 

 

 

Francisco de Míguel Moreno is in the kitchen at Newcastle United’s training ground, straining amid the steam and sizzle. The man everybody knows as “Paco” is assistant manager and fitness coach, but he has “three passions in life,” he says, “football, cooking and mountain biking,” and today he is indulging in two of them, tasting and seasoning as he dishes out paella.

 

He has done this before, frying off hunks of chicken and rabbit before heading to the practice pitches, leaving the rice to bubble away, then serving it up in the players’ canteen. Today, he is sous chef, helping Chris, the cook. “It’s good,” he says, taking a forkful, even if the chorizo is not quite authentic. “You add chorizo to everything,” he says of the English.

 

Once a fortnight or so, Paco, 44, heads to the coast. “If we have the day off, we’ll have a meal together in the evening as a staff,” he says. “I’m the official cook. I really like going to the fish quay in North Shields, finding a quality fish and preparing it. Compared to Spain, it’s a good price. I suppose I get this love of food from my mother. I like to eat healthily, well.”

 

Rafa Benítez is part of that regular gathering and if you want to understand Newcastle’s manager, it is instructive to speak to those around him. “I don’t know if he’s just being polite, but normally Rafa eats everything,” Paco says. Without fail, there will be a suggestion — a little salt, a touch more paprika. “Always,” Paco says, smiling. “In food, in everything, it is about detail with him.”

 

Benítez is a detail manager, forever thinking, wholly intense, obsessing over minutiae. Just as he was by Liverpool fans, he is adored by Newcastle supporters, because he taps into something vital. At a moment when a failing club was defined by how small it felt, this garlanded Spaniard arrived and spoke about stature and possibility, encouraging reconnection.

 

It can feel like a contradiction, that relentless streak — the dawn phone calls to his staff, talking a player through an error as he walks off the pitch — and the emotion Benítez stirs. “There was a bit of tough love and coldness about me and Rafa, but I think it drove the best out of me,” Steven Gerrard, his captain at Liverpool, said last week. “I was always searching for his love.”

 

Paco, the assistant manager, spends his spare time cooking and mountain biking, which is probably more relaxing than watching a film with Benítez, who has a habit of interrupting with correctionsPaco, the assistant manager, spends his spare time cooking and mountain biking, which is probably more relaxing than watching a film with Benítez, who has a habit of interrupting with corrections

 

One year, an English friend and associate sent Benítez a Christmas card, taking the trouble to write it in Spanish. He felt pleased with himself, until the response came; Benítez had marked out corrections to the spelling and grammar, and then — only then — expressed his gratitude. Seasons greetings to you, too. C+.

 

It is a small story, but Paco laughs at the telling. “That is exactly what he’s like,” he says, and the affection jars with that mirthless reputation. Paco, who has worked with him since Anfield, has his own tales. “If you watch a movie with Rafa, he’ll say: ‘Stop, rewind!’ He’ll notice the actor opened the door with his right hand and in the next frame is holding it with his left.

 

“In another film we watched, there was a white horse. In the next scene, the horse was black. ‘How is that possible?’ Rafa said. Nobody else realised. He has the capacity to analyse everything, to be clinical. It’s just inside him. It’s terrible. Good for football, terrible to watch a film with. Can we not just enjoy it? But he always says that small details make a massive difference.”

 

Newcastle held a training camp in Ireland last month. “We were all together and Rafa asked us if we knew what day it was,’” Paco says. “Monday? He said it was the 17th day of the seventh month in 2017: 17, 7, 17. He’s the kind of person who will see that.” Benítez, 57, wears an old digital watch — negligible fashion sense, 100 per cent accuracy.

 

Mikel Antía is Newcastle’s first-team coach. He played under Benítez in Real Madrid’s youth set-up. “We’d be driving somewhere for a game and he’d put a video on, showing us the movement and interplay of the great teams,” he says. “One time it was AC Milan. ‘See how [Franco] Baresi and [Alessandro] Costacurta work together,’ Rafa said. We were 15 or 16. Come on.”

 

Yet there was a purpose. “He was always finding time to make us better,” Antía says. “That’s what he’s like now, helping people take a step forward.”

 

If you think of Benítez as a teacher and his players students, the relationship is easier to fathom; he is not Kevin Keegan, another Tyneside Pied Piper, all heart and cuddles, one of the boys. He is not tactile. You find Rafa’s love in effort.

 

“I have been with Rafa for ten years and maybe he has changed slightly in the way he deals with things and he has more experience,” Paco says. “But in terms of work, he’s exactly the same. He can’t live without football, there’s no doubt about that. You can chat to him about weather, food, anything and, in the end, the conversation comes back. Football, football and football.”

 

Antonio Gómez Pérez, another coach, analyses Newcastle’s opponents. Like Antía, he played under Benítez at Real, scurrying home after training sessions to write down what he had learnt, a bond which stretches back three decades. “He was a maestro then, the same as now, analysing everything,” Pérez said. “He thought about football 24 hours a day. He still does.”

 

They have the battle scars to show for it. “At Napoli, Rafa, Antonio and me lived in a hotel beside the training ground and spent almost all our time in either one place or the other,” Paco says. “We didn’t have a social life. We were door to door with Rafa and it was very intense. Sometimes I’d cook for the group. We were together all the time.” “And you didn’t kill each other?” Antía asks.

 

It still feels remarkable, that Benítez, a Champions League winner, agreed to lead Newcastle through the nettles of the Sky Bet Championship. The club is under difficult ownership, but he is still there. “It was the fans,” Paco says. “We knew this was maybe the north’s biggest team, so the potential is high, that the fans are behind it. We are trying to make the club bigger.” While Benítez brought in Paco, Antía and Pérez, he inherited Simon Smith, the goalkeeping coach. “The first time I was here, I worked with Sir Bobby Robson and now it’s Rafa — two of the most respected managers ever,” Smith says. “Other managers have said, ‘You’re with the ‘keepers, get on with it’, but Rafa’s knowledge of the position, what he expects, has been great.

 

“It’s given me . . . a new lease of life is not quite the right phrase, but it’s fantastic to have somebody to bounce things off. If you’re having a bad day, he has this great ability to say, ‘I’ve seen this before’. So did Sir Bobby. It’s the city, too, and what he brings. There was such a big lift when he arrived. We don’t dare think about it, but he’s our best chance of winning something.”

 

Smith is the outsider, an Englishman among four Spaniards. “My wife is buying me lessons,” he says, but one area will forever remain incomprehensible. In what passes for their downtime, 20 minutes here, an hour there, Benítez, Paco, Antía and Pérez play Mus, a Spanish card game. “It’s good for Rafa,” Paco says. “You can relax and keep him away from football for a while.”

 

Mus is played with a partner, two against two. “It takes things from poker and other games and it’s very psychological,” Paco says. “You talk a lot. It’s very funny, you can lie and lie and lie. You make signs that identify what you’re going to play. Rafa is the master of Mus and I’m not just saying that because he’s the boss. He played when he was young. He knows all the tricks.”

 

Pérez winces. “The problem for Rafa is that now he’s playing with me and he’s losing,” he says. “He’s dropping a level. I always lose.”

 

“We play the best out of ten and normally the losing pair will buy a meal for the others,” Paco says. There is a sigh from Pérez, laden with drama. “I need a pay rise,” he says.

 

Perhaps it is the only off switch Benítez has. Very few people can live like that, with such intensity. To recalibrate, to refresh, Paco cycles. “It’s a perfect area for mountain biking,” he says. “I’ve been everywhere: Hamsterley Forest, Chopwell, Kielder Forest, Blanchland. I’ve explored Hexham. If we have a day off, I’ll ride for a few hours and enjoy the place. It’s a beautiful part of the world.

 

“I’m very glad to be here. We all are. Newcastle is an amazing city, fantastic culture, not too big in terms of population, but we fill our stadium for every game and you can feel the passion for the club and its history. It’s lovely. We have been to big clubs before, but you don’t have this same feeling, this passion. We found something similar at Liverpool.”

 

The challenge is not the same. Newcastle are unlikely to be pushing for the title any time soon. “You have to realise you’re in a different position,” Paco says, “but our goal is always to improve the team. We don’t have any limits. The Championship was fascinating — real English football, the English style — but nothing changed. We want to win every game.”

 

Benítez will not let up. He pushes and pushes. Do something well and he will hurry you to the next task. “But if you make a mistake, there is a depth of understanding,” his friend who sent the Christmas card says. “And if you’re suffering, the job is irrelevant to him. He cares.”

 

“When you see this guy, with his reputation, working so hard, you cannot work less,” Antía says. “He doesn’t need to tell us.”

 

On Merseyside, where his family still live, Benítez’s connection with the Hillsborough families is deep and, at Newcastle, he has fanned out into the community — visiting charities, inviting fans to the training ground to talk through his plans. “He is a good human being,” Paco says. “A warm person, not cold. But it’s true that when he’s analysing the game, it’s all he’s conscious of.”

 

On the final day of last season, the title won and Newcastle promoted, Benítez fussed, ushering everybody who grafted at St James’ Park to have pictures taken with the trophy. “In many of the photographs, he is looking away,” Paco says. “He was looking for who should be there. He wanted their work to be appreciated.” Caught on celluloid, lost in obsession, Rafa’s love.

 

Paco’s paella recipe

 

INGREDIENTS

Spanish paella rice (100g per serving)

Chicken and vegetable stock, hot (double the quantity of rice)

One good quality chicken, jointed (or chicken pieces) and in bite-sized pieces

One rabbit, jointed

Handful of green beans, trimmed

Garlic, chopped (1-2 cloves, but to taste)

Fresh, ripe tomatoes, chopped (or one tin)

One red pepper, sliced

Pinch of saffron

One teaspoon Spanish paprika

Olive oil

Seasoning

 

METHOD

Sprinkle chicken and rabbit pieces with salt and fry in olive oil at a high temperature until browned all over.

Add garlic, tomatoes and pepper and fry for five minutes

Introduce the rice and paprika and fry for two more minutes

Add the hot stock and saffron and bring to the boil. Add the green beans. Leave for 15 minutes

Taste for seasoning

Remove from the heat, cover the pan and leave for at least 5 minutes

Serve

 

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