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Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

Greg

by Greg
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Would you have Rafa back?   

463 members have voted

  1. 1. Would you have Rafa back?

    • Yes, as manager, immediately
      101
    • Yes, as manager, but at some point in the future (eg if relegated)
      97
    • Yes, in an advisory or DoF role
      74
    • No, not in any meaningful capacity
      132

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Paully

Paully

Posted
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Rafa Benítez: Have I enjoyed this season? No, but I am pleased with my work

 

Rafa Benítez tells George Caulkin he has been writing coaching reports since he was 12 and aims to keep Newcastle up on a limited budget

 

George Caulkin, Northern Sports Correspondent

March 20 2018, 12:01am, The Times

 

Benítez is more accustomed to challenging for trophies than battling relegationSERENA TAYLOR/GETTY IMAGES

 

 

He is in shorts and cap on the training pitch. “Passes, more pressing,” Rafa Benítez barks. He is working on Newcastle United’s defensive shape, repeating drills so that good habits become ingrained. He beckons his players into a circle, his foot on the ball, and begins asking questions. “It’s what I try to do,” he says later. “I’m 100 per cent convinced they will improve if they think. If they think, they learn.”

 

If anything can encapsulate Benítez’s philosophy, it is this. All managers must be motivators, psychologists and politicians, but the Spaniard prods intellect as well as stirring blood. “I was a PE teacher,” he says. “You can give orders. Or you can say, ‘Listen, we have these problems, so give me a solution,’ and they have to think about it. Some only realise they were learning when you leave or they retire, but if they understand, they become better players.”

 

Benítez obsesses over minutiae, searching for the smallest advantage. “You’re trying for perfection,” he says. “You know it’s impossible, but you try. The other day, Stevie G [steven Gerrard] was on TV talking about a game: ‘Ah, Rafa always said that little details can make a massive difference’. So he heard. Maybe he didn’t realise when he was playing, but now he’s a commentator. And it’s true.”

 

At St James’ Park, he has a dual challenge and it is unfamiliar, discomforting. “What my teams usually do is compete, with the chance to win,” Benítez says. “When I say win, I don’t just mean games, I mean trophies.” With Newcastle, it is about avoiding relegation, pushing players to overachieve, one eye on goal difference. Beyond that, it is about persuading a dysfunctional ownership that the best way of saving money is by investing it.

For now, he is doing what he does, doing what he is. Without a Premier League game until a pivotal meeting at home to Huddersfield Town on March 31, Newcastle decamped to Alicante last week, for a little sun and fresh scenery, training at La Finca resort. For all that this has been a season of stress — he feels a heavy duty to the supporters who adore him — Benítez is in his element, coaching and cajoling.

 

He has done it since he was a child. “When I was 12, my team won the championship for schools in Madrid,” Benítez says. “At 13, I went to Real Madrid and started taking notes. I was giving marks to my team-mates after every game, writing down the top scorers. I still have those notebooks at home somewhere. I have all the training sessions of my players.

 

Benítez’s intensity has not slackened at a club without a trophy since 1955

 

“I have my old computers, the Commodore 64 I used to work on. I used MS-DOS, then BASIC, but I also learnt you have to be careful with computers. They give you too much information. The one thing I don’t want to do is lose the feeling. Because I played football, I know how you feel when you make a mistake. I can hear when you are kicking the ball properly or not, just from the sound. I like to see players, watch them. That human part is crucial.”

 

His methodology works. He won La Liga (twice) and the Uefa Cup with Valencia, the FA Cup and Champions League at Liverpool, the Europa League with Chelsea, the Coppa Italia with Napoli. He has twice been named Uefa’s manager of the year. At 57, he is at a club with an allergy to tangible success — no domestic silverware since 1955 — but the intensity has not slackened. He gives all that he has.

“I don’t want to say I’m always working, because then it’s, ‘Oh, Rafa is just football,’ ” Benítez says, but he undermines his own reticence. His day at Newcastle’s Longbenton training ground begins at 7.30am and can end at 8pm. And when he returns to his apartment? “I watch games,” he says.

 

Anything else? “Films. I can be on the computer — we have software now where we can watch any game, any time — and see someone punching someone or jumping in the background. I can concentrate on both things. Or I go and see my family in Liverpool.” Does he switch off there? “My daughter is always saying, ‘Why did you do this?’ or is telling me about my system or tactics,” he says. Merseyside digs deep into Benítez’s being, but Newcastle has touched him too. He joined the club in March 2016, citing their stature and potential as they slumped towards relegation and is loved for it, a relationship crystallised when he agreed to stay.

 

It does not make it easy. “Have I enjoyed being Newcastle manager? I enjoy it when we are winning,” he says. “I like to do things well and when you see something is right, I’m really proud. But it’s difficult to enjoy it when you are suffering all the time because you have to win and then you lose. Have I enjoyed this season? No, but maybe the word ‘enjoyment’ is different in English. I’m really pleased with my job. I like it. But enjoyment is when you score eight goals in the Champions League against Besiktas.”

 

Love is a burden and a privilege. “When you know the fans are against you, it’s not the same passion,” he says. “When they support me in the way they’re supporting me here, you feel this responsibility. I am really proud of that. I try to focus during games — doing my job properly is the best thing I can do for them — but sometimes when they sing my name, I have to wave.

 

“Everybody expects me to be right every time. I’m not, but I try to do my best, to make sure I make less mistakes, to be sure this team will stay up. I sleep, but I feel this support and I feel this responsibility. Not just for the games and the performances, but every decision. Sometimes you want to improve things and sometimes you cannot.” It is more complicated when you “don’t have all the tools”, he says.

 

This is another Newcastle theme. For three transfer windows in succession, Benítez’s advice has been shunned and although the team were promoted as champions and have since found momentum — they are 13th in the Premier League, four points clear of the bottom three — trust is fragile, clouded by the prospect of a takeover. It is not the behaviour of the club he hoped he was joining. His players might be learning, but what about Mike Ashley, the club’s owner. “We have to change things,” Benítez says. “I came here with the idea to compete and to create a strong team and a strong club, to compete every year. What we have to do if we stay up is improve. The way Newcastle were doing things before I arrived doesn’t mean they were right, because they were going down. Now we have had the chance to go up we cannot make the same mistakes again.

 

“When I said I wanted to stay I could see the potential for this club to be in the top 10 or even higher, but it depends on consistency. You have to have a structure. Everybody has to be organised. Can we win trophies? We would need time, but you never know in the cups. To compete and be capable of winning something, you need to have the plan and the process. Everything has to be . . . not settled down, that’s not the right phrase, but more clear.”

He has a year left on his contract. In the middle of January, the very moment Benítez was pushing to strengthen his squad, Ashley and Lee Charnley, the managing director, asked him to consider an extension. The timing was baffling. It is not a priority. “No,” Benítez says. “The main thing is Huddersfield. The job is not done.” Communication with Ashley has tailed away. “Our talking in January was fine but I have contact with Lee. He’s the link,” he says.

 

The frustration — for Benítez, for the fans — is that Newcastle could be more than they are, more ambitious, more dynamic. There was a glimpse of it in their win over Manchester United last month, but that was a glorious exception. “It was the atmosphere,” he says. “Everything around the game was what you were expecting from this club in the Premier League. That was a good example. It’s what you want players to be saying when they come to St James’ — ‘Wow, very intimidating.’ It’s something I think we can replicate week in, week out — if we stay in the Premier League.” There is a beat, a pause. “At the moment, it is difficult,” he says.

 

It is a long way from perfection, but Benítez will keep coaching, keep obsessing, keep asking questions, until there are no more questions left to ask. It is who he is.

 

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High Five o

High Five o

Posted
Posted

He is 100% professional and a great man. Just read that article above and i feel we are in the best hands possible.

At times the football can be boring (who can blame him with the squad we have), but there are always a plan and a reason for his choices. Unlike some of the frauds we have had here the last decades.

 

 

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afar

afar

Posted
Posted

I went the unconventional route of a Dragon 32 then onto BBC "Model B" Micro (I had a modem and was hooked up to Prestel, which was a souped up teletext system before the internet took over). A few years later though the Amiga would blow everything out of the water, I hopped on that bus pretty quickly.

 

I had the original Football Manager on the BBC and Elite, those two games were absolute classics.

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LV

LV

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I went the unconventional route of a Dragon 32 then onto BBC "Model B" Micro (I had a modem and was hooked up to Prestel, which was a souped up teletext system before the internet took over). A few years later though the Amiga would blow everything out of the water, I hopped on that bus pretty quickly.

 

I had the original Football Manager on the BBC and Elite, those two games were absolute classics.

 

I had an Acorn Electron :anguish:

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AyeDubbleYoo

AyeDubbleYoo

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Couldn't afford an Amiga, kept the C64 until I eventually jumped into consoles a couple of years later. Used to go round my mate's house to play games on his Amiga... seemed so futuristic. Just not having to load games from a cassette was pure luxury :lol:

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Vinny Green Balls

Vinny Green Balls

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Posted

My buddy's had Amigas while I was stuck with my dad's IBM XT. Dark Castle looked a thousand times on the Amiga than on my XT. And that horrible PC speaker. Sounded like Dracula shat out Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

 

I remember perusing the local BBS's to pirate games. First games over 1MB were bitches to download on a 1200 baud modem.

 

We're fucking old.

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