[lfc-news] Just a game but it madeBenítez into a strategist - Guardian

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The Guardian, 19 Mar 2005
Just a game but it made Benítez into a strategist
Liverpool's progress this season is down to playing with toy soldiers
By Dominic Fifield

Rafael Benítez sought perfection through reflection this week.
Infuriated by Liverpool's inconsistencies, his side's form lurching from
the supreme to the downright dire, the Spaniard's thoughts returned to
the evening when, as a 12-year-old in Madrid, he had been beaten at his
favourite board game by a friend.

Stratego, he explained to his baffled audience, pits the players as
military commanders deploying their Napoleonic-era units on the
battlefield with a view to engaging and capturing the opponent's flag.
The blurb on the box says it is a "unique game of strategy, memorisation
and unit management". Benítez has effectively used it as a model for life.

"I stayed up all night thinking about why I'd lost and how I could
prevent it happening again," said the Liverpool manager, manoeuvring the
journalists' tape recorders around the table to illustrate how he'd pair
his field marshal with a foot soldier and where he would sink his mines.
"Once I'd learned the rules and understood the strategies, I didn't lose
again. I worked out a way to win no matter who I played."

As a quirk this smacked of Gareth Keenan's geeky top-trump fixation in
The Office, but as an insight into Benítez's mind-set it was revealing.
Football has long since taught the 44-year-old that chance can undermine
even the most carefully laid plans, but the meticulous and scientific
approach remains, along with the obsessive desire to succeed.

When the 201st meeting between Liverpool and Everton ignites tomorrow,
Benítez's task is to send out a side to emerge victorious from a fixture
they simply must win. Merseyside is gripped with thoughts of the
Champions League. For Everton, a chance to finish above their city
rivals for the first time since they last won the championship, in 1987,
has the added incentive of qualification for the elite competition.
Liverpool's thoughts will be not only on Juventus but also on the
desperate need to claw back a seven-point deficit to offer a prospective
route back into the premier tournament.

Benítez's first season has had the occasional blistering performance -
Arsenal, Olympiakos and Bayer Leverkusen - but has been undermined by
his side's inability to find consistency. Last week's searing display in
Germany was followed by goalless tedium against Blackburn, with only one
shot on goal. The contrast transformed Benítez the workaholic into
Benítez the worrier.

"I go home and mutter into my pillow all night wondering how I can
change things," he said. "We've lost games and I've found it
unbelievable. I've left thinking, 'We're better than them. How did we
lose?' I have been trying to understand why, working 14 hours every day
with my staff.

"We have more quality than Everton, but it's not always about quality in
football. Everton work hard for each other as a team - they do what we
did at Valencia - whereas we haven't had the right mentality in some
games. We've lost concentration at times. We need to work on being
stronger mentally.

"At Valencia we'd change our game plan to combat a particular opponent.
That's something we still need to learn how to do here. We're still far
away from achieving what I want us to be but, in football, you can
change things by working harder."

Results may not always suggest as much but Benítez has already made an
impact behind the scenes. His players admit they have never had as much
tactical preparation, as many hands-on routines, sit-down sessions and
flip-chart lectures.

Yet it is the manager's insistence on creating a united squad with depth
in talent, just as at Valencia, which shines through. Players have
changed room-mates on away trips to help bond the multi-national set-up.
Social events have been encouraged. The squad hit the town last Friday
with a free weekend ahead, the signings of Mauricio Pellegrino and Scott
Carson prompting an evening out to welcome them. In Spain, Benítez would
hold regular team barbecues, with his Argentinian players doing the
cooking; as the weather warms up, Pellegrino will presumably be kept busy.

Liverpool still lack the finesse Benítez wants, suggesting an overhaul
to come. "That will have to wait until the summer," he added. "You can
do different things then but, for now, if the players try I can't
criticise them. We have players with the character to stand up in games
like this because we all know this is about more than three points. We
need to win to reduce that gap."

Benítez's record - from Stratego to La Liga - suggests he has the drive
to do just that, though Liverpool's fans will require first-hand
evidence tomorrow to quash any suspicion that Merseyside is witnessing a
tip in the balance of power.

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