Love him or hate him, no man divides opinion on Merseyside more than Rafa Benitez. He was ruthless, hard to please, tactically astute, made quite a few enemies for his style of management and conduct but I want to explore why to one person Benitez is considered one of Liverpool’s greatest managers and to another he is considered a failure. In his 6 years with the Anfield club Liverpool won a Champions League, an F.A. Cup, reached a further Champions League final, were Premier League runners up on one occasion and had a further four top-four finishes.
He presided over arguably Liverpool’s most successful period since the late eighties but in his final season Liverpool slumped to a disappointing 7th position – “and this is a fact”. So what do Liverpool Football Club owe this man, while many idolised him and would love to see him back at some point, he is vilified by others who were delighted to see the back of him in June 2010.
It’s fair to say that during Benitez’s tenure, inconsistency was a presiding theme as Liverpool had some fantastic highs and some baffling lows. In his first season Liverpool won the Champions League but in the league they finished in 5th place, behind city rivals Everton and lost in the League Cup final to Chelsea. In the 2005-06 season Liverpool’s league form improved, finishing in 3rd place and winning the FA cup, however their Champions League performance wasn’t what they had hoped and they were dumped out in the 1st Knockout Stage by Benfica.
The 2006-07 season saw the arrival of the calamity duo of Hicks and Gillett. Liverpool did reach another Champions League final and finished the season in 3rd once again, however they were 21 points off winners Manchester United.
Liverpool were even worse the next season, finishing in 4th and there were rumours that Benitez’s time was coming to an end as his relationship with the owners became strained. Benitez survived and the 2008-09 season saw them push Manchester United all the way, finishing in 2nd place just 4 points behind the winners, losing only 2 games all season. His final season saw Liverpool completely slump under the pressure of trying to mount a serious title challenge and they eventually finished in 7th place and dropped out of the Champions League at the group stages.
The result: Benitez had his contract terminated. So 2 major trophies, 4 top-four finishes and a further Champions League final… Oh and of course a famous Community Shield win in 2006, get in! I would argue that although his final season in charge was a complete flop, Liverpool made great strides forward in the League and 2 Champions League final appearances re-established them as a European Super-Power once more.
The best thing rafa did was start the youth overhaul but cos Rafa was too worried about losing fourth place he failed to take risks and use the much needed flair that the would win tight games,
Rafa also ruined the potential of some players by not using them enough and made poor choices in the transfer window. Good luck to Rafa but i wanna talk about our future and if we do talk about the past we have more worthy managers to think about in LFC history
Fair point about there being a distinct lack of flair in his sides, particularly after Luis Garcia went, he was overcautious for too long. However I disagree with your point about him ruining some players potential by not playing them, the same could be said about Man U in recent years and Chelsea and Tottenham who have not played some of their most promising kids enough, but when you are fighting for a top four finish managers cant risk blooding youngsters in important games, anyway, many of Liverpool’s younger players have been sent out on loan to get 1st team exp and many haven’t covered themselves in much glory either. good to see some of the lads breaking through now tho. Next season Liverpool will be a force
strange we dont see those rafa transfer spending comparisons with other teams now, since torres was sold ? alonso, macherano, torres, babel, £110 million recouped.
The 2 failures which I did notice was, he was not successful with his transfers and he was always depending on our start player to deliever ever game!
Bull shit he was better then Houller!!!!
He just messed up at the end!..but even Mr. Ferguson messes up some times and he is never sacked..this shows …We didn’t trust one of the best tactician in the world!
Miss u Rafa!
YNWA!