[lfc-news] Benitez, the calm and controlled master of strategy - Independent

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The Independent 26 April 2005
Benitez, the calm and controlled master of strategy plotting Chelsea's
downfall
Liverpool's manager is seen as the antithesis of Jose Mourinho, writes
Sam Wallace, but should not be underestimated

Rafael Benitez is English football's politest refusenik. For three
months this summer, Liverpool's new manager polished his command of the
English language until every sub-clause was in place and every sentence
ran smooth and, when he was finally satisfied, he mastered the art of
saying nothing. His team are in the Champions' League semi-finals
tonight, the cult of the foreign manager grips the nation, but Benitez,
and the forces that drive him, has remained Anfield's best-kept secret.

Unassuming and unflappable. The patient demeanour of a sixth-form
careers adviser with no great passion for sharp suits and carrying a
little extra around the waist. It is an unlikely profile for a
45-year-old man who has been trusted with restoring the greatness of
Britain's most successful-ever football club. He arrived from Valencia
with two league titles, one Uefa Cup and an impeccable reputation and he
has used an everyman aspect, and inexhaustible good humour, as a shield
around his personality.

Benitez, it is widely accepted, has given away less about himself in the
course of the season than his opposite number, Jose Mourinho, reveals in
the average 15 minutes. For Liverpool's manager there have been no grand
public avowals of love for his family, no cryptic newspaper columns
hinting at courageous personal battles against sinister hidden powers.
When Liverpool-watchers cast their minds back for some shred of detail
about Benitez's personality, all that comes up is an old, military board
game.

Stratego, to be precise - first released by the Milton Bradley
corporation in 1961 and moderately popular among Spanish kids growing up
in the 1970s. Last month, very much unprovoked, Benitez lectured a group
of slightly bemused reporters at some length about his passion for the
game. He talked them through the rules, and the strategy of Stratego,
but most of all he emphasised, with earnest intensity, his own supremacy
at it. No one, came the message, beats me at this game.

For a manager who has given up little of himself since he moved to
England last summer with his wife, Montse, it was a charming moment of
eccentricity and the image of a young Rafa painstakingly setting up his
Stratego army for battle is equally beguiling. Preparation and attention
to detail are not just the preserve of Mourinho. That Liverpool are even
in a position where they might add to their four European Cups this
season is down, in no small measure, to the tactical brilliance of their
Spanish coach.

It is fundamental to the rules of Stratego - you can actually still buy
it - that formation is the key to success. A principle that sustained
Liverpool through their finest hour this season, the 0-0 draw against
Juventus in Turin that qualified them for tonight's Champions' League
semi-final against Chelsea. Facing a five-man midfield - and one that
was without Steven Gerrard - Juventus' coach, Fabio Capello, whose
tactical acumen no one would dispute, found himself comprehensively
outmanoeuvred.

That night in the Stadio delle Alpi it was possible to forget how far
Benitez has taken Liverpool in Europe in such a short time. At home to
Graz AK, where they lost the second leg of their qualifier 1-0, and away
at Olympiakos and Monaco, it would be no exaggeration to say that
Liverpool were poorer than at any time under Benitez's predecessor,
Gérard Houllier. And then away at Deportivo la Coruña and, in the
tumultuous final group game at home to Olympiakos, they were supreme again.

After defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday left Everton four points
clear in fourth place with a game in hand, Benitez could be forgiven for
finding his patience stretched to the limit at the prospect of failing
to qualify for the one competition in which Liverpool have excelled.
However, those inside the club's Melwood headquarters report a much
calmer atmosphere under the new regime. For all his strengths as a
manager, Houllier's moods on any given day could be felt right
throughout the building - Benitez's state of mind remains his concern alone.

Benitez has proved so far to be a manager who requires remarkably low
emotional maintenance from the Liverpool board. In a city that prides
itself on a faith in social equality, it did not go unnoticed that,
after the triumphant draw in Turin, Benitez paid tribute to "the
workers" at Anfield as well as the players and coaching staff. The
Liverpool manager will joke when he feels confident enough - injury
crises are sometimes met with the mock despair that his loyal assistant,
Pako Ayesteran, will have to play - but so far he has shown far less
emotion than he managed in one day at Valencia.

It was Benitez's last day and it finished with a press conference at
which he broke down in tears - the end of an acrimonious power struggle
within the hierarchy of the then Spanish champions. Last May, the club's
new president, Juan Bautista Soler, made a personal visit to Benitez's
home to beg him to stay, but it was too late. In renegotiating their
manager's contract, a series of mistakes made by Valencia ended with his
departure.

The story of how Valencia came to lose Benitez is another lesson in the
resolve that lurks beneath his mild public face. With Valencia closing
in on the title this time last year, Benitez approached the club's chief
executive, Manuel Llorente, with whom he had a strained relationship, to
negotiate new terms on a contract that was due to expire this summer. He
was understood to be earning around £1.2m a year.

The first offer to Benitez from Llorente was a meagre one-year extension
to his contract and a pay rise of five per cent. Benitez was
disbelieving and rejected the offer which was raised to a two-year
extension and a 10 per cent increase in salary when the two parties met
again on 9 May, the day that Valencia beat Seville to win La Liga. Even
then, Llorente was understood to have been banking on pressuring Benitez
into signing a deal over the last year of his contract.

By that time he had decided that such derisory offers in return for
transforming Valencia into only the fourth team outside the duopoly of
Real Madrid and Barcelona to win the league in 20 years meant that he
would have to leave.

Benitez already knew that there was interest in him across Europe -
including the offer of a lucrative two-year deal from Besiktas in
Turkey. When it became clear that Liverpool were prepared to offer him a
five-year deal, his mind was made up.

Realising too late how disastrously their negotiating tactics had played
out, Valencia offered Benitez a radically improved offer to stay. When
Soler visited him, he is reported to have asked the Liverpool coach to
name his price, but Benitez told him that it was too late and two weeks
later he had been appointed by the Anfield board. Since then Valencia,
currently sixth in La Liga, have embarked on a steep decline.

What his departure from Valencia tells us about Benitez is that the
affable, bespectacled man on the touchline at Anfield has a streak of
iron running through him. He was an unspectacular player in Real
Madrid's reserves and at Parla and Linares, sporting in those days the
hairstyle of choice among 1980s Spanish footballers - a nest of black
curls that has diminished with age. His rise as a manager with
Extremadura and Tenerife came despite two false starts with Valladolid
and Osasuna in the mid-1990s.

While his preparation for the biggest matches has been exemplary, his
record of signings at Liverpool has divided opinion. No one doubts the
merits of Xabi Alonso, but then at £10.6m, no one should have had reason
to. At the other end of the scale is Antonio Nuñez, the hapless winger
who arrived from Real Madrid as part of the fee for Michael Owen and
whose performances have caused consternation among some of the senior
players. He has, by all accounts, fared little better in training.

Luis Garcia can justifiably be regarded as a success, his poor away form
in the Premiership balanced by breathtaking contributions such as that
exceptional goal against Juventus. Josemi, signed in a desperate attempt
to get some cover at right-back, was beginning to show his limitations
when he was injured in December. Perhaps the biggest disappointment,
relative to his reputation, has been Fernando Morientes who, cup-tied
for the Champions' League, has scored just three times in 14 games.

The serious injuries suffered by Liverpool, nine to first-team players,
have been borne with dignity by Benitez, who has never complained about
the disruption that they have caused to his season. His criticisms of
referees, when they have occurred, are pitched at the anger level of a
suburban neighbour mildly inquiring about the late return of a loaned
lawnmower. But the quiet life cultivated by Benitez has meant that
throughout his career he has found himself underestimated. That it will
be the case again tonight will suit him perfectly.

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