SO Xavi Valero has gone and gone to London, taking his merry band of hired coaching guns with him in his wake, with the little matter of one Rafael Benitez Maudes nestling his prodigious footballing cojones in the blue plastic Recaro Chaise Longue of the Chelsea dugout.
It’s left a lot of people tied up in knots really, hasn’t it? Walking around with stress-induced cold sores on their lips, tiny ulcers on the tips of their tongues, breaking out in hives, stones in their shoes, and unsettling itches in their anal canals. Chelsea fans are up in arms, not knowing whether to stage a mass walkout or fashion a stand full of exact banner replicas for The Shed End, rocking “Ra-fa, Ra-fael…” as they gargle down their cold cups of sick. Liverpool fans range from shifting uneasily in their seats to, amazingly, existential angst on the nature of their tribal allegiance. Such is the mental wiring of the modern football fan.
We’ve all done it to death already, of course – the debate as to whether Rafa will succeed in his new role. The media have pulled no punches, unsheathing the bludgeon for his ‘unveiling’ press conference, requesting comments on racism, whether his ample buttocks were simply warming said Chaise Longue for one Pep Guardiola, whether it’s all really about Torres, whether he’s guilty of having insulted his new-found ‘devotees’ in a former life… each jab met with a smile and a graceful parry, as he settled into coaching and training his team.
On the starters blocks, his nemeses of yesteryear, Wenger saying he was perplexed as to why ‘his friend’ had taken on a temporary role of this nature, Mourinho joking with Maicon on the subject at The Etihad (“Ask Materazzi”), and Alex Ferguson straining at the proverbial leash to commence hostilities in front of a salivating media throng.
In the beginning, we saw the seeds of the end. The English football establishment, you see, offers an ‘A La Carte’ selection of Michelin Starred plates for your delectation in these circumstances.
The recipe book is well worn. The hungrily self-righteous and right-thinking followers of our game can look forward to a succulent Spit-Roasted Spaniard, futebol de salon placed artfully in his mouth, turned lovingly above the petrol-doused kindling of his coaching and statistics manuals.
With their appetites whetted following their entree of indignation and hypocrisy, washed down with a nice drop of legal and ethical contortion, the masses now chant ‘Why Are We Waaaiiii-ting’, rattling their silverware on the placemats as they yearn for their tender slice of Foreign Interloper, marinated in sweet revisionist narrative since 2005. (Those unable to make the banquet will be served their own fun-sized Poo Panzerotti – pick up the vouchers on the back page of tomorrow’s Daily Mirror.)
Mmmmmm. It’s a delicious prospect, and the oven’s set to Gas Mark 4, with Rafa already being brushed with the final coat of accusatory marinade, a good even layer being applied from all sides.
He’s an able manager, of course. More than able. There are legitimate questions over whether his professional split from Paco Ayesteran has in any way diminished his powers, but his penultimate season at Liverpool goes some way to putting that argument to bed. As he said himself, he has more than enough experience of dealing with difficult owners and men in suits – of navigating the politics of the corridors and treatment rooms behind the scenes.
But Chelsea doesn’t offer him the comfort of the house of cards – of a political structure to manipulate in his favour. In possession of the keenest of analytical minds, his career to date (save for Inter) has seen him demonstrate his ability to reinforce or undermine whichever aspect of the structure he needs to sustain control – retaining his hold on the reins by his very fingertips while maintaining the outward appearance of authority.
Of course, he left Valencia when it became clear he could progress no further (Pitarch pushing him beyond the point that Roig could talk him back into the fold), and from there did an incredible job of retaining his job at Liverpool, harnessing the support of the fans against flighty minds behind the scenes intent on hiring the likes of Jurgen Klinsmann, gently jabbing in the media to encourage the release of transfer funds, or to entrench his influence in other areas of the club. But that’s not an option at Chelsea. All the politics in the world can’t protect you from a Goethe-style random bullet to the head when Roman’s whim bubbles up from his Type A testicles. Notions of ‘success’ don’t come into it.
Cold analysis against the backdrop of realistic context shows he really did do an incredible job at Valencia and Liverpool in spite of consistent turmoil behind the scenes, reaching European finals, replenishing trophy cabinets, reaching top ranked status in Europe, and delivering unprecedented points tallies in league competitions, the only real blip being his final season at Liverpool, when circumstances eventually took their toll on performance.
This is a manager who, when given proper authority, is capable of delivering steady incremental improvements in a team’s balance, tactical nous, and ability to consistently impose its will on games. But the narrative related to his powers has rarely done anything but contradict this ‘Fact’, and that will only continue. History in this country will not be kind to Rafa Benitez, because it has already been written in a way that contests his account, and neglects his working context.
It goes, and will continue to go, something like this. He is impossible to work with, and politically bellicose. His ‘Rant’ cost his club a league title. He disrespected his fellow managers with ‘game over’ gestures. His ‘tactical genius’ was really just a reliance on Steven Gerrard, and later Fernando Torres. He loses his dressing rooms. He can’t do ‘man management’. His approach was relentlessly negative. He *always* set out with two defensive midfielders. He never let them off the leash. Rotation. Zonal marking. On and on it goes.
In his current context, though, that barely matters a jot. To manage effectively, you must be able to assert effective authority over your group. To do that, you need them to believe that you have genuine backing from your employer, and from your fans. Hell, you need players who are capable of following a leader in the first place. Picking from a squad still perilously stocked with sacred cows, Rafa faces his first game on Sunday for a billionaire with a butterfly mind and a baying horde that’s already queuing up for a slice of his hide, fresh from the spit. Looking on, the media and punditocracy can look forward to English football’s establishment machinery cranking into gear, chewing him up and spitting him out. A veritable crushing machine, you might say.
The rest of the league’s managers will rest easy for a few months as the focus turns to the weekly soap opera at The Bridge. Players, opposing managers, fans – there will be a steady supply of potential powder kegs ripe for ignition, with the media hell bent on setting them off. It’ll take something special to distract them before it plays out to its conclusion.
I may be wrong, but I think it’ll end badly for Rafa. He may even win a trophy or two, but any influence he may have on that will, if it happens, be tipp-exxed out of the narrative. Ferguson’s already set that tone with his comments about the World Club Championships. “He’s had no involvement in building this squad”. That’s the hymn sheet. Stick with it. Get with the programme.
So you lot – it’s up to you whether you want to wring your hands about it for the next however long it takes. Me? I’d rather look on bemused and embrace the horrible reality of our game. Treat it as a learning experience and chow down on the hard crust of your Poo Panzerotti – that’s where we are as a footballing nation.
I can’t lie – I don’t ever want Chelsea to win any kind of trophy – that won’t ever change. That’s just the way things work. But as someone who admires and is fascinated by the man both as a person and a manager, and as someone who sees this as inevitably doomed to failure, I can only hope he achieves what he himself wants from his tenure there: to rehabilitate his standing in the game sufficiently to attract offers of the genuinely ‘big projects’, and to rekindle the respect of his European peers.
Excellent read as usual Roy. Your style of writing is top drawer.
I just would like to ask one question: Was there ever a manager under Roman who really had his career harmed because of taking the job? Scolari the only one maybe, but I think the rest, even Grant profited from it. I think Rafa himself already took so much harm from his short spell at Inter ( wrongly) that he can only win in taking this job. No matter what we all think of Roman, or Chelsea and it’s fans it is one of the high profile clubs/jobs in world football and I really think at this period of Rafa’s life the only he could get in that ‘league’.
Good read, nice one Roy.
I also hope Rafa gets what he wants from the move but I disagree with some of the fundamental points you’ve made.
Rafa has a fantastic opportunity to challenge people’s perception of him now he is in the Chelsea hotseat. And I think he’ll seize it.
Primarily, this is due to the fact that the London-based press will have plenty of exposure to the man and they set the tone for the national press.
Contrary to the popular belief of many northerners, not all southern football writers are idiots, unable or unwilling (or both) to revisit their entrenched opinions. From the outside it’s easy to see why people regard Benitez as pugnacious, difficult, inflexible and cold but there’s plenty of smart and open-minded football people down there who Rafa will win over in time.
Also, let’s not forget that Rafa has had plenty of downtime to walk around the sandy beaches of the Wirral in his undies and flip flops, smoking weed and reflecting on the cosmos, his place in it and how he will approach his next gig. He’s an intelligent man, a deep thinker and a pragmatist. I think we’ll see new things from Benitez mark II.
The media frenzy will ensue (it’s already in full swing), but I don’t think they’ll get their pound of flesh as quickly as some have suggested.
Possibly the best article I have read on this site. Thanks Roy.
Ferd
History in this country won’t be kind to Rafa, as it’s already written… BINGO! Give that man a coconut.
Well written article, Roy. Many things are true, and exactly the way most of us feel about it, I guess.
I think, in their mass, Liverpool fans feel happy for Rafa to be back in the game, and to be able to prove his worth and perhaps re-shape his reputation in England. It’s a bit of a travesty to see him at Chelsea though. But… c’est la vie. We can’t eat the cake and have it too.
He’s been lurking in the background with people mocking him for running a website, for giving lectures, for writing books, etc. We stood by him, as he always stood by us. Now he’s there, in one of the top teams of the Premier League, and has a chance to prove everyone wrong, or… fail spectacularly.
My personal view: I am glad he’s got his chance to manage again. Well, unfortunately it’s Chelsea, the club I despise… but so what. It’s just business for him. He’ll never love Chelsea like he loves Liverpool. But he’s a professional, and he will defend his ‘temporary’ employer. And their fans.
Be interesting to see how it goes for him there. Yes, I wish him success. I hope he wins the fucking league. I hope he manages to stay in the Champions League too. I wish that success to him, not to Chelsea, with a secret hope that his success may help him be back home one day… whenever that is.
But I won’t be out there defending him any more if he is criticised by the press or rival fans. He is not our fight any more… for now, anyway. I won’t be posting on Chelsea match blogs, trying to prove people wrong if they criticise Rafa. After all, he is now Chelsea manager. For now. Let’s see how their moods change if he delivers results.
And I think, that should be it now. We should leave him alone for now, and focus on our club and our manager, and our players.
And I really hope that he doesn’t attempt any raids on LFC for the players (unless it’s Cole or Downing). Because then I would feel totally let down.
Brilliant post Karen.
“He’ll never love Chelsea like he loves Liverpool”.
Superb.
Wow, Ferguson is just pure poison isn’t he?
Being head hunted for a top job is NOT luck. It’s a recognition of what you’ve done in the past. Big employers are not stupid.
Taking 5 years, spending significant money and achieving little AND keeping your job. Now that is Luck.
That’s Ferguson, the luckiest man in football.
And he would not have survived without Brian Kidd coming in and pulling his rear out of the fire and the club assembling a very expensive squad to win that first title.
Rafa has faith in his abilities and knows he has excellent players to work with.
The club needs at least 2 heavy weight goal scorers if they’re serious about winning the title against Madchester, however I think it will be too tall an order to do that by the time they came in and got settled.
Personally, I think chelsea made a mistake not declaring the contract as a 2 year deal. It’s possible they’ve undermined him right there saying it’s just a 7 month thing.
We shall see. In theory, he has the players to combat the smaller clubs in a way that we couldn’t but yet it might not work.
It’s possible that defences are more organised and he doesn’t have the fire power in the team to rattle the goals in.
Currently only Manchester have that fire power in their ranks.
What is certain is that he will be publicly crucified if his style fails to break down the smaller teams in the way we couldn’t.
But then he gets little respect in England anyhow, so it doesn’t really make much difference.
Come on City! I don’t think it will end badly for him at all. He’ll be a revelation and turn the plastics into a football machine. The cockney cunts don’t deserve such a man.
And walk away with a few more millions when things eventually do go wrong. Don’t worry about Rafa, he’ll be alright.
absolutely agree, Rafa is merely reminding people he is still about, the hysterical reaction from Turdie and Wengie show that he still frightens them, didn’t see any comments about Redkhapp to QPR. Despite my reasonable hatred of Chelsea i think they have some great players and it looks like Rafa may already beginning to turn David Luis into a real defender.
i expect he will take mancini’s job next season.
“Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation.” – Alasdair Gray, “Lanark”.
‘Who ate all the pies? Who ate all the pies? You fat bastard! You ate all the pies!’ – stupid football fan, ‘terrace chant’
;-)
if this appointment doesn’t prove that rafa is not as honorable or “fight against political owners” mr for the fans coach then i don’t know what.
By now, every top manager, footie fans, and his pets knows Roman the megalomaniac football manager sides the players more than the manager type.
I am sorry his acceptance to work in a all too obvious poison of a chalice chelsea role proved beyond how hypocritical rafa is being that how he always wanted great owners that provided funds and power and not meddle in affairs.
roman is the opposite of this relationship he sort for.
its time to wake up and heal the divide this manager did to us. rafa was always for himself albiet he did some charity and all. but in terms of football, he was lucky at times but used the H&G chaos to his advantage.
Had to read this inanity 3 or 4 times to make sense of it. The only conclusion I can come to is that English is not your first language. If so, fair play for having a go at it, I certainly couldn’t write on a Chinese site, nor would I try. The more so if I, like you, had not got the first feckin clue what I was talking about. But whatever your mother tongue, don’t let that slow you down mate. Keep reading the Englsh newspapers for language practice, but ask your tutor to explain to the rest of the class that just because you see something in print, it doesn’t necessarily make it true. Or even grammatically correct come to that.
ferd
Great read that Roy, nice one.
Whilst history suggests that, by the mere fact of being Chelsea manager in the post-Mou era Rafa’s job is already on a knife-edge, I’m inclined to believe that Abramovich views Rafa very differently to his previous appointees.
Abramovich went against the grain in appointing Rafa. He had seen the ‘protests’ after speaking to Rafa in March, he would have seen then (if not known already) that there is a stigma associated with Rafa in the media and minds of many fans, but he went ahead and sacked Di Matteo at a very inconvenient time and appointed Rafa anyway. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Roman a Rafa-fanboy, but just as it has been noted that Roman’s managerial hirings and firings are perhaps vindicated by an ever-replenishing trophy cabinet, he may choose to give Rafa *more* support and rage against the machine of the UK press and Shed End boo boys to prove that he has made a correct choice in Rafa.
Everyone loves to be proved right, I’m guessing oligarchs are no different.
Which leads to me to a question: Tony Barrett had mentioned that Rafa was given an 18 month contract, but the official statement from Chelsea is “interim… end of the season”. Has TB cleared up the contradiction, or have Chelsea just pulled the wool over their fans’ eyes?
don’t forget Rafa might not succeed. He is cautious, and has been criticised for that, especially against lesser teams.
He’s even been called a bad manager for it.
He has a team/squad of talented players and you have to let them off the leash to play their football.
He might not get the balance right.
Infact I think it’s probably quite likely due to lack of pre-season, didn’t build the team etc, etc.
We’ve been lucky to have a few “Liverpudlians” manage the Team over the past few years.Bill Shankly,Bob Paisley,Ronnie Moran,Joe Fagin,Roy Evans,Kenny Dalglish and Rafa Benitez.
It surprises me how Benitez is constantly villified in the media;but I’m not that shocked.
The game nowadays is controlled and manipulated by press and T.V.You get in first with your soundbites and one-liners and the general media will report it for weeks on end as Gospel.
And that’s the way it is now.Not much balanced reporting just hysterical headlines.And even when you look beyond the tabloids and look at what people like Matthew Syed writing in The Times or Martin Samuel writing in The Mail or even that pathetic hack Patrick Barclay who is now confined to the London Evening Standard.Remember what he said to John Barnes when Barnes was discussing the Suarez incident?Barnes asked where he was when he was being abused.Barclay’s reply? “Oh John I was only a Junior reporter on the Guardian in those days” No he wasn’t.Barclay is about 60 now and he was Chief Football Writer on The Guardian in those days!
Most of them are liars and sponsored by “some other influence”to write the stuff they spout.
But you’re right.Benitez will be hounded now and it will be unrelenting.
It started yesterday when he was appointed.Every paper carried headlines about a “lucky”manager.The quotes all came from that much loved and respected Manager.The same Manager who said that Mark Hughes should be sacked the day before his team played QPR.
Need any clues?
I agree Brian. The “Appalling Vista” of a successful Benitez cannot be allowed to happen. Such a thing would mean that 7 years of media narrative would be wrong, and we can’t have that in the modern game. So if Rafa wins or loses, he still has to eat the dogshit sandwich.
ferd
If he succeeds it “wasn’t his team”, he was “lucky”.
If he fails (and he might), then the normal abuse will follow. After the fulham game, it was “From Zero to Zero”.
The only lucky manager going is Fergie. 5 years, spending not winning, poor league table finishes – kept his job. Bailed out by Brian Kidd.
Not possible today or at any other club back then. Luckiest manager ever.
Nice read that Roy, the plastic wide-boys haven’t a fucking clue what a good manager is, fickle, pathetic, reactionary, unimaginative, bigoted, naive, I could go on, and on…..
They’ve won 17 trophies (major ones) compared to Liverpool’s 60, so it’s fair to say they don’t know talent when they see it & have little experience of winning big. To me they are completely irrelevant in so many ways.
That said I’d like to wish Rafa all the best, I hope he enjoys winding up (and hopefully beating) that uncouth, uncluttered pathetic, childish buffoon from gunchester.
This is the man singlehandedly responsible for loading the dead revels (get it?) with debt because he fell out with two major shareholders over the stud rights to a horse, laugh? I nearly shat. Manure are in a big pile of dung because of an argument over the Cock of Gibraltar! It always tickles me that one.
Oh and who the fuckin’ell is sheldonsexyfootie and what’s he on about? Complete drivel and plain lies, if it wasn’t for Rafa LFC may not exist today. He must be a sports writer or pundit. If you read this fella, FOAD, you’re clearly not a Liverpool fan and have no knowledge of the subject, best stop bunking off school then you may learn how to research, read and write.
refreshing read
wanted to congratulate Ferdia for his comment to sheldonsexy….. A wonderful response, loved it.
As for Rafa, a great man and scouser. They call him the magician in Spain lets hope he makes Chelski disappear, gets them to sink without trace just as long as he is the first in the lifeboat.