[lfc-news] Benitez banks on the high tempo of Anfield - Independent

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The Independent on Sunday, 22 May 2005
Benitez banks on the high tempo of Anfield
Liverpool know that aristocratic Milan can be beaten - and Rafa has just
the gameplan
By Nick Townsend

So, the manager Liverpool's arbiter-in-chief, Alan Hansen, condemned not
long ago as having created, with his predecessor Gérard Houllier, "a
conveyor belt of mediocrity" stands at the end of the production line
with his side packaged, labelled and ready for inspection by Europe.

Rafael Benitez's galvanisation of Liverpool to their first "European
Cup" final for 20 years vindicates, largely, if not completely - there
is still the matter of that wretched domestic form to explain - the
faith of the chairman, David Moores, and chief executive, Rick Parry.
Equally satisfying will be the Damascene-like conversion of those
doubters among the Anfield elders.

But can this largely Anglo-Spanish amalgam of players combine for one
final thrust? Players such as Xabi Alonso and Djibril Cissé, who have
only recently recovered from injury, and others like Djimi Traoré, who
has been at times derided by the Kop but whose performances have been
enhanced by Benitez's presence. They can, even if rationality informs us
that Milan, the club founded by a British expat, ought to expose
Benitez's team as one unworthy of occupying the same fervent theatre in
Istanbul on Wednesday night. Carlo Ancelotti's men are surely capable of
brushing Liverpool aside with the disdain of a Sir Michael Gambon
detecting an insolent young actor attempting to upstage him. Aren't they?

Just run your eyes down the cast list of the Rossoneri: the supreme
executioner Andrei Shevchenko; the swift and inventive Kaka; Cafu and
Kakha Kaladze, with their rapid sorties down the flanks; the ageless
and, on his night, still peerless defender Paolo Maldini; and the World
Cup-winning goalkeeper Dida.

Yet such an analysis ignores the fact that, in Jamie Carragher, Steven
Gerrard, John Arne Riise, Alonso and Cissé, Liverpool boast sufficient
power, vision and dedication to the cause to disturb the presumed
authority of Milan.

Perhaps, just as crucially, in Benitez's acceptance of his team being
regarded as the more impoverished of the pair, he possesses a potent
psychological weapon. Almost imperceptibly, they have advanced to this
point without pretension. Why alter that approach now?

It may - no, make that would - have been entirely different if Chelsea
had qualified and Jose Mourinho had dispatched howitzers of supreme
self-confidence into the Turkish night sky. In contrast, Benitez remains
a model of restraint, prepared only to reflect on the role that may be
played by the travelling faithful.

"People say there will be 35,000 [Liverpool] supporters there [at the
Ataturk Olympic Stadium], almost the same as Anfield. They will be
behind us and we will play with more confidence," Benitez says. "When
you play here at Anfield with our supporters, you feel the players give
120 per cent. In another country, it is different. Maybe it will only be
110 per cent. I hope to see my team at the same high intensity as they
have been [in Europe] at Anfield."

He still possesses a limited English vocabulary, but that at least
ensures that Benitez doesn't stray into areas where a loose expression
may rebound on him. He is a man whose emotions are only truly unchained
within the confines of the training ground and on the touchline.

The technical area at Anfield measures 20ft 6in by 3ft 5in. Rafa the
Gaffer has worn it nearly bare, pounding the turf to exhort his team.
Even when just after the turn of the year his detractors turned on him
vehemently, they could not deny the passion and suffering with which he
invested his presence.

It is that evidence, and his acknowledged coaching aptitude honed under
the tutelage of such men as Vicente del Bosque at his home-city club,
Real Madrid, which has continued to endear him to the supporters and
indeed, the Anfield old boys' mafia, who are never quite sure whether to
come armed with a stiletto or bear a garland of roses.

While Liverpool's European constitution, under Benitez, has been strong,
there has been a definite "no" vote on their domestic performances. They
are a team so far adrift that they required an RNLI vessel at the ready;
they are a team whose own failings, never mind Uefa's regulations, have
brought about their absence - for now - from next season's Champions'
League.

And yet it would churlish indeed to suggest that Benitez, given a
horrendous sequence of injuries and a squad much of which he inherited,
has not extracted the optimum from those at his disposal - even if at
times Liverpool have done so with a conspicuous absence of adventure.

Which begs the question: which of Liverpool's guises will we witness in
Istanbul? The one which savaged the Serie A champions Juventus in the
first half-hour of the home leg? Or that which elected to hold Chelsea
at bay for the majority of the second half that excruciating then
euphoric night of 3 May?

The mighty Maldini, whose collection includes four Euro-pean Cup medals,
declares that "caution is at the heart of their [Liverpool's] game", and
it is certainly true that Benitez's European methodology is founded on a
resolute rearguard. In Liverpool's 14 European games this season they
have conceded a mere seven goals. Nevertheless, his team are capable of
tearing the jugular from their opponents, as they did against Juve at
Anfield. Will their strategy be similar, in the knowledge that a limited
PSV Eindhoven ensured an uncomfortable night for Milan in both legs of
their semi-final?

"It's a possibility," says Benitez. "I have ideas. Maybe three ideas. I
need to look at my players in training, and afterwards say, 'OK, this is
the best idea for my team'. Sometimes people say, 'But Juventus beat
them' or 'PSV played really well against them'. Yes, but that is PSV,
that is Juventus. They are different teams to my team. I need to use my
players to beat them."

You wouldn't wish to face Benitez across the poker table, and he and
Ancelotti are already there, impassive, unblinking. The latter may be
able to shuffle a potential winning hand from Shevchenko, Hernan Crespo,
Jon Dahl Tomasson and Filippo Inzaghi, but Milan are unlikely to take
the game to Liverpool. Milan, according to Mourinho, can be
"treacherous", possessing the ability to score on the counterattack and
"win without apparently having done anything to achieve it". He adds:
"They mix work, aggressiveness and talent in [Gennaro] Gattuso, [Andrea]
Pirlo and Kaka. They have super class in Shevchenko."

Shevchenko could be the catalyst for a Milan victory, but Benitez
recognises that any attempt to neutralise the Ukrainian striker's
presence could be futile. "Shevkenko is a key player for them, but they
have so many. They have Tomasson, Inzaghi, or Crespo or Kaka," he says.
"It is a big mistake to think about Shevchenko, only Shevchenko."

In his own studious way, Benitez clearly believes that in the shape of a
Gerrard or an Alonso he possesses the personnel to make Ancelotti think.
And think hard. It does not always take a manager's words to convey an
impression of belief in his side. Logic may not support the Spaniard,
but when has that had any relevance to this season's Champions' League?

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